I’ve had a Mac running as a server in my house for more than 20 years now, and I have zero regrets. As I detailed five years ago, the specific uses for my always-on Mac have changed numerous times over the decades, but the various Macs that have served the purpose have always made themselves useful.
2023.11.23.
2021.12.22.
Using an old MacBook Air for a home server
I just assembled this temporary home server “rack” with my 2018 MacBook Air on top.
It does the following things:
- General file sharing and project archival
- Backups my iCloud Drive and Photos to a Time Capsule
- Runs Time Machine server for my M1 MacBook Pro
- Tests Rails code against Intel via a local GitHub runner instance
- Processes files via DEVONthink smart rules
- Schedules some of my RSS feeds which are published via Feeder
- Archives my websites using rsync
- Filters my email via Mail rules
- Keeps my Reeder queue up-to-date
- Content caching
- Local device backups for my iPad Pro and iPhone
- Media server based on the Apple TV app and Home Sharing
- I don’t care about Plex.
- Torrent server to acquire the latest Linux ISOs
- Connects my DYMO labeler, because it caused kernel panics on my M1 MacBook Pro
I plan to get a proper Mac mini after we moved into our new house, but for now, this is more than sufficient.