Having replaced my MacBook with a Mac Mini, I would reconsider. The MacBook is just such a _complete_ package. Great speakers, great keyboard, fantastic screen, the fingerprint sensor thingy.. Takes a lot of gear to match that

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frollogaston 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I thought the question was low-end MacBook + mini vs high-end MacBook. The low-end one has all those nice things. I wouldn't sacrifice that. If it has to be MacBook + super old used mini as home server, so be it.

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jmalicki 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Except for LLM inference speed, macs suck as a server and are pretty expensive, why wouldn't you get a Linux box?

	▲	JohnBooty 38 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Buying a Mac specifically for serving is misguided in nearly all use cases, but as an all-in-one solution they make sense. Personally I feel like the number of boxes I need to manage has an inverse correlation to my happiness. Macs are totally “fine” for light server duty… as is just about any computer of the last decade+. The CPUs are beasts, the disks are screaming fast. The operating system itself may not be ideal at serving but you can just run Docker/Orbstack if you need to do something especially Linux-y. I’d put the question back on you — what are scenarios where an Apple Silicon Mac wouldn’t cut it as a light server for one person or a handful of people? About the only scenario that comes to mind is scenarios where you expect to utilize it so heavily that the fans are running for many hours a day. At some point those are either gonna wear out or just ingest so much dust that the machine runs hotter and needs a deep clean. But even that is largely mitigated by just pointing an external fan at it.
	▲	frollogaston 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Because it's not exactly a server, more like a home PC / dev machine that I also remote into. Usually SSHing but sometimes VNC which is annoying in Linux. And the Mac mini is pretty fast. Yes a Linux box would win in terms of multicore CPU(?) or GPU if you need to run big batch processes, or a high-uptime service. My work is running those on cloud, not in my house.

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cj 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If your computer never leaves your desk, the iMac is pretty competitive with those features. Even comes with a TouchID keyboard.

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mikestew 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I’ve had iMacs for almost 20 years. My last one was indeed my last. Without target display mode (use the Mac as a monitor), I’m ditching a perfectly good monitor. I was going to buy a Mac Studio and a good monitor to replace the iMac until the spouse reminded me that we are now retired and will spend time in a camper. So a MBP for me (and BenQ’s Mac-specific monitor), but others might do well to consider a Mac Mini/Studio.

iMacs are great for a lot of use cases, but my image of the typical HN user would prefer to keep the monitor separate.

	▲	frollogaston 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It's like, you pay laptop prices for laptop performance but without laptop portability or desktop modularity. This only sorta made sense back when Apple had no "prosumer" desktop offering unless you wanted a cheap used Mac Pro (which is what I ended up doing at some point).
	▲	3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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pebble 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Not an option if you're trying to drive 3 decent screens.

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jedberg 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My M1 Pro drives 4 screens no problem. The trick is that you can only attach two through one Thunderbolt port, so you have to attach the 3rd one via the other port instead of your dock. (The 4th screen is the laptop's built in screen)

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frollogaston 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Keyword is pro. Non-pro chips drive fewer screens unless you use DisplayLink. Which I did at some point, it's a hack but ok for lighter usage.

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jedberg an hour ago | parent [-]

Yes but if your debate is desktop or laptop, you're probably not looking at anything but a pro.

	▲	frollogaston an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Uh idk, I have a desktop and laptop that are both base. The laptop is an M4 Air which is overall faster than M1 Pro, especially single-core where it's even faster than M3 Max.

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joshstrange 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Macbook (base) yes, but my MBP (M3 Max) is driving 4 screens for me without issue.

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frollogaston 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Honestly the screens become more of a liability than an asset to me past 2 (including the laptop screen). I've tried. Even if I'm knee deep in work and have like 4 servers I'm monitoring, my eyes are only going to look at one screen at a time, so it's just extra window management and eye/head/mouse movement to have more screens.