Holds up to 140 units for co-location serving

Mac Mini Vault, a co-location facility in Wisconsin just north of Chicago, has debuted a customized 48U APC Netshelter cabinet configured to hold up to 140 current-design Mac minis, with the quad-core i7 Mac mini server particularly in mind. The Minis are mounted vertically on specially-designed shelves in a cabinet with six APC switched Power Distribution Units (PDUs) for remote power cycling if necessary, backed up by uninterruptible power supplies and a generator.

Co-location is a preferred solution for small companies that want to own their own equipment but have a dedicated facility to connect the equipment to the internet. The Mac mini stays at Mac Mini Vault's data center in a server rack and is managed remotely by the owner, with minimal need for on-site assistance (but which is available if needed). The Minis are generally hosting web sites or corporate intranets and other types of servers.

Each cabinet is wired for power and network connectivity, using Cisco switches with Gigabit Ethernet that connect to redundant fiber connections to the data center's backbone. The company owns its own data center building, all the IP addressing and infrastructure. While Mac Mini Vault offers co-location hosting for all Mac mini models, the newest quad-core i7 server units can handle up to 16GB of RAM, and storage can optionally be increased up to 9TB using the company's RAID Storage Vault service.

As the Thunderbolt technology found on the latest units becomes more prevalent, future upgrades may enable significant speed connectivity increases. The company's co-location plans start at $30 per month and include continuous internet-based support, business-hour phone support and free "Hands-On Support" where an engineer might need to physically hook up a monitor and keyboard to troubleshoot an issue during business days.

by MacNN Staff