best 'place' for BIM server

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Hi everyone,

After searching the forum I'm still not sure where to set up the BIM server.

Our office has a 2009 Mac mini server for file sharing, backup etc. and it supports 5 work stations, all mac mini and one mbp.

Now we need to set up a BIM server, and we are not sure which way to go:

option 1, put it on the existing mini server (we are worried if it's good enough)

option 2, buy a new quad core mac mini and make it as the BIM server, it can be an temp work station for some casual drafters as well. (we think it's the best solution for the BIM server but cost too much)

option 3, replace one of the work stations to a new quad core mac mini with Fusion drive and maybe 16G ram . This work station is broken and need to be replaced with a new one. (the only thing we are not sure is that this is a heavy duty work station, all day long ArchiCAD, will this make eaten up the resouce required by the server?)

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It seems everybody's still in the holiday.

I end up chose option 3. and book a i7 Mini with fusion drive, will update the ram as well.

[Anonymous]

A Mac mini is really not sufficient for ArchiCAD built in graphics are not supported which means you will get a less than optimal experience and will get slow performance and errors in 3d

Min spec mac to be used as an ArchiCAD workstation would be mid level iMac.

For BIM server Mac mini I would go with the 2.6 GHz i7 with 16Gb RAM and 1Tb hard drive as fusion drive is unlikely to give you better performance you could however swap out drive for a large aftermarket SSD

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Thanks for the advice sboydturner. Any specific reason that fusion drive will not improve the performance?

[Anonymous]

Fusion drive is a small (128Gb) SSD working in conjunction with a regular 1Tb HD with software that automatically manages which files to move to the HD and which to keep on the SSD

For a BIM server the SSD portion would very quickly become filled with the team worked fles and backups. Fusion drive would be good on workstations for OS, applications, libraries, and local working files but network speeds would limit benefit of using on the BIM server.

I hope this helps

Regards,
Scott

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Hi sboydturner, thanks for the explanation. Being hard to control what to put on the SSD Part is a problem.

Do you have any recommendation on after market SSD?

[Anonymous]

Samsung 840 pro's seem to be getting favourable reviews on mac rumours forums, also OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD reviews well

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Thanks a lot