I've used the desktop mini that way. I just made sure to boot it the first time with peripherals attached. Then made sure the VNC service started at boot, removed the peripherals and used VNC forever after. The DVD drive was quite handy for several upgrades.
We also ran http://codefetch.com/ off a network of (desktop) minis at a colo. Now it's running out of Cosmo's house on a linux box, though.
Owen Densmore wrote circa 10-07-30 03:47 PM:
I'm considering a mac mini for a home server: backups (Time Machine), large overnight file uploading to my web site, torrents, etc. A non-desktop utility system running snow leopard. I plan to run it without keyboard, mouse and display .. a headless wifi networked box in a corner. Has anyone built/used such a home server? My two main question are: 1 - "Desktop" mini vs XServe mini. The mini comes in two flavors, a desktop version, with DVD drive and running the standard leopard desktop; and a server version, running Leopard Xserve software and with a second disk replacing the DVD drive. The server mini is heftier and costs more. I'm considering the server version, but not sure if I really need it. So the question is: Has anyone used a mini server and is it worth it? In particular, is the lack of a DVD drive a pain? 2 - Headless: I don't know the details of how to run a mini headless. The server version has a server admin console and apparently can do most things one needs to do. The standard mini generally is not run headless, but can be via Apple Remote Desktop, basically a version of VNC. I believe it is an additional cost however. I think both versions can run ssh just fine. So the second question is: How do you run minis headless?
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