#MAC MINI SERVER RELIABILITY INSTALL#
#MAC MINI SERVER RELIABILITY UPGRADE#
#MAC MINI SERVER RELIABILITY FULL#
#MAC MINI SERVER RELIABILITY TV#

#MAC MINI SERVER RELIABILITY INSTALL#

Install ESXi the as per VMWare's instructions. You give up enterprise features, vSphere and etc.

Using the complete Mac system for a firewall got you down? install VMWare ESXi 6.x.

#MAC MINI SERVER RELIABILITY TV#

( A newer TV will also work) After install you can continue to run the system headless, attaching a HDMI monitor and keyboard as a 'crash cart' when needed. The work around for this is to use a the Mac's HDMI output for the monitor and configure the system. This means you can't use a Mac monitor during install, or to trouble shoot at the console. If you want, and you should 2x1GB Ethernet NICs you'll need the Apple Thunderbolt > Ethernet adapter, pfSense is happy showing both NICs.

Go through your normal setup and BAM! You'll have a power house for pfSense. The install will delete everything on the drive. You might get it to work, I had a wired Windows keyboard so I did not bother. I had problems with the Apple BT keyboard, so wired is best. Hold down option and choose the install drive. The mac will boot from the pfSense USB installer. Option 1 - Install pfSense on the Mac Mini There are difficulties and some workarounds, they are below. The mini will boot from a pfSense USB and install the software. Okay, so here's what I found out and what I did. and good luck for whatever you decide to do! But of course you say it's gathering dust so. a movie/music server etc, and get another device for pfSense.

#MAC MINI SERVER RELIABILITY UPGRADE#

I'd be tempted to upgrade it to SSD and then use it as something else e.g. My overall view is the Late-2012 Mac mini is such a great general-purpose machine that it would seem a bit of a waste to dedicate it solely to pfSense. But if you leave it only to intercept http then the ratio of traffic that gets served by Squid is so minimal. That said I don't actually find squid that useful - the vast majority of traffic is https and I (personally) found it to be too much hassle and difficulty to intercept SSL traffic. As for SSD vs HD I don't think pfSense is particularly disk intensive, though maybe useful for squid. I would be more wondering about the reliability and compatibility of the Thunderbolt>Ethernet adapter when used with pfSense (maybe it is fine, I just haven't looked into that).

Which obviously isn't a problem in itself. So my gut feeling is that your Mac Mini would indeed be overpowered. RAM usage is 27% of the 8GB, which if I use the 'TLD' option in pfBlocker rises to around 50%. My disk identifies as 55GiB, of which about 2% is used.

#MAC MINI SERVER RELIABILITY FULL#

Running pfsense with Suricata on WAN & LAN, pfBlockerNG, squid etc on my 50Mb line uses around 8%CPU idle, up to around 15% CPU at full speed torrenting. I'm a Mac user and have the same Late-2012 Mac mini (2.6 GHz Intel Core i7) but don't use it for pfSense. I have a Qotom Q355G4 with Core i5-5250U processor 8gb ram and 64GB SSD. I can't answer all your questions but maybe the below is a little useful.

If itРІР‚в„ўs overpowered IРІР‚в„ўd like to use VMWare and have another VM with Ubuntu for running some smart home cron jobs. Will 16gb ram useful/used by the pfSense OS.software?Р”Вoes pfSense need that much disk space, assuming I clean logs every 2 weeks.Р”Р„re there any gains from upgrading to a SSD? The system seems overpowered, compared to Netgate offering. (I can drop packages if my HW wonРІР‚в„ўt support it.) IРІР‚в„ўd like to use the Mac Mini, as a pfSense box with the following packages. So far I get 300Mb - 400Mb to each device, Netgear-Orbi fire wall only. All things considered 12 users on line at once, max. We have 3 AppleTVs, and another 12 IoT devices, plugs and low bandwidth stuff. The pfSense system would be for my home, 4 users including 2 teenagers that have 6-10 friends over all the time, and using the internet. The system was literally collecting dust, so IРІР‚в„ўd like to use it for a pfSense system. (One built in, one thunderbolt) so they both run at the rated 1Gb, no usb nics.

I have a Mac mini, late 2012 with 16GB of RAM, 500GB HDD and its got 2x gigabit NICs.

Mac mini server reliability