Well... Apple has further killed the use of PowerPC

[Certificate of Excellence]

Yes, you can connect to AFP on an M2 Mac, but you can't host AFP on an M2 Mac server.

I'm wondering if I have to go back to an Intel Mac Mini for my home server. I wanted the server to run fast on an SSD, and be low-power, low maintenance and very fast speeds. Is there any recommended Mac for that? The M2 Mini is great for blazing SSD speeds, but just can't deliver AFP...

If you still have your Intel mini, I'd use that. It will serve just fine, be low power, upgradable to SS storage and accessible to all your Macs, PowerPC, Intel and AS. If you want to use/experience the AS, you can still do that for your modern machines. I find it very handy to keep a modest AFP NAS up because of this hobby. Once it's up, it literally runs itself and is forgotten until I need it for something lol.

 

[mectojic]

If you still have your Intel mini, I'd use that. It will serve just fine, be low power, upgradable to SS storage and accessible to all your Macs, PowerPC, Intel and AS. If you want to use/experience the AS, you can still do that for your modern machines. I find it very handy to keep a modest AFP NAS up because of this hobby. Once it's up, it literally runs itself and is forgotten until I need it for something lol.

Yeah, I'll be considering it. Would an SSD in a 2010 Mini feel "fast" on a gigabit network?

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Yeah, I'll be considering it. Would an SSD in a 2010 Mini feel "fast" on a gigabit network?

That is hard to gauge as it is subjective. I'n getting patient in my older age. My AirPort Extreme AFP solution is definitely limited by usb2 and the time it takes to spin up the hdds. I notice the wait times there - doesn't stop me but I notice them. Putting that up against my wife's Intel mini, and that mini+spinner is much snappier. So upgrading to a quality SSD and gigabit ethernet? I think it would be plenty fast especially for Legacy needs/access and would serve you well.

I move files to and from my AFP easily and from all of my machines which spans ppc/Intel/Mseries. All this to say that having an always on, low power legacy AFP solution squared away, allows you to focus on a current gen, fast NAS solution for your current (and future) boxes to really leverage your Apple silicon. The AFP mini will just sit there smiling tucked out of the way waiting for you.

 

[mectojic]

That is hard to gauge as it is subjective. I'n getting patient in my older age. My AirPort Extreme AFP solution is definitely limited by usb2 and the time it takes to spin up the hdds. I notice the wait times there - doesn't stop me but I notice them. Putting that up against my wife's Intel mini, and that mini+spinner is much snappier. So upgrading to a quality SSD and gigabit ethernet? I think it would be plenty fast especially for Legacy needs/access and would serve you well.

I move files to and from my AFP easily and from all of my machines which spans ppc/Intel/Mseries. All this to say that having an always on, low power legacy AFP solution squared away, allows you to focus on a current gen, fast NAS solution for your current (and future) boxes to really leverage your Apple silicon. The AFP mini will just sit there smiling tucked out of the way waiting for you.

Thanks.
Don't really have the time these days to do upgrades on my old devices, but thankfully I do have an SSD in an Intel Mini already, so at least it's reassuring to know I have it when needed.

Maybe I was overreacting in my OP, but it is really annoying every time Apple depreciates a service that they could've just kept. I get that times move on though. They should really hire some part-time coding guy who ports modern functionality back to PowerPC, just for fun. Would that really hurt their bottom line?

Another note: I was also using the old AFP/SMB1 formats to serve files to my legacy iOS devices too. So I lost that too upgrading my server.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Thanks.
Don't really have the time these days to do upgrades on my old devices, but thankfully I do have an SSD in an Intel Mini already, so at least it's reassuring to know I have it when needed.

Maybe I was overreacting in my OP, but it is really annoying every time Apple depreciates a service that they could've just kept. I get that times move on though. They should really hire some part-time coding guy who ports modern functionality back to PowerPC, just for fun. Would that really hurt their bottom line?

Another note: I was also using the old AFP/SMB1 formats to serve files to my legacy iOS devices too. So I lost that too upgrading my server.

I always thought that was funny as well. If I were really into the gear I made, part of being nerdy about what I was doing would be backwards compatibility. Because I don't know about you but I really like to use my old Apple stuff with my new Apple stuff.

That is after all why I am upgrading the dead hdd & aging battery in my favorite generation 3 iPod with new guts. Because even though I could chuck it in the bin and stream tunes on my M2 mbp instead, I like using my old iPod. That is an expression of nostalgia nerdiness that Apple seems to not have much of these days. It's heavily forward focused which as a business minded person, I get the drive to look forward that way - profit, growth & innovation is important. But I do think it is just as important to stay connected to where you are now and where you were in key ways - to your point, AFP could easily have been an expression of that and nod to their History. AFP was the last of Apples network stack but a good one that stood over 3 decades and one folks still use. Granted we can still access said AFP servers on our Apple Silicon, we just can't serve up AFP anymore but to those who enjoy their old Apple stuff, being able to reap the hardware benefits of Apple Silicon served AFP would be just another example of the ability to weave multiple platforms into our user experience.

Even the best things come to an end eventually but I tend to agree, Apple should hire some nerds to stuff some cool back in where Apple progress knocked it out.

 

[Bigwaff]

All this and not a mention of Netatalk…

Netatalk - Networking Apple Macintosh through Open Source

Netatalk - Networking Apple Macintosh through Open Source

netatalk.io

GitHub - dgsga/netatalk: Netatalk is a freely-available Open Source AFP fileserver. A UNIX, Linux or BSD system running Netatalk is capable of serving many Macintosh clients simultaneously as an AppleShare file server (AFP)

Netatalk is a freely-available Open Source AFP fileserver. A UNIX, Linux or BSD system running Netatalk is capable of serving many Macintosh clients simultaneously as an AppleShare file server (AFP...

github.com

By all means not a “slide to enable” service but you will be able to serve AFP shares from your modern Macs.

 

[eyoungren]

Yeah, I'll be considering it. Would an SSD in a 2010 Mini feel "fast" on a gigabit network?

I have a 500GB SSD in a Late 2009 Mini running Mojave. That SSD used to be in my MacPro. It's not slow, or at least I've never noticed. My home network is Gigabit with both the router and all my switches being Gig-E. I also pay Cox Communications for Gig internet speeds, so all the way around I've never noticed any speed issues with this Mac.

 

[Amethyst1]

Yeah, I'll be considering it. Would an SSD in a 2010 Mini feel "fast" on a gigabit network?

Any (remotely recent) SSD is able to easily saturate that.

 

[barracuda156]

Or, as additionally for the other way round, install samba3 via macports and connect to the Mac from via a samba3 command line syntax.

For the record, samba4 should also build and presumably work on PowerPC.

 

[V.Yakob]

@mectojic, you can use the netatalk 3 building manual -- It works great on Sonoma 14.3.1 on AppleSilicon-based/Intel-based Macs.
If you don't want to build packages, you can use NFS, the client and server are already built into macOS. For vintage Macs, use MacNFS. This extension works even on Mac OS 7.6.1, and allows you to freely connect to the NFS network directory created on any Linux or macOS.

A little more than a year ago, I wrote a cheat sheet about it and published it here and here. At that time, there were no official instructions for assembling netatalk, so the cheat sheet tells about the fork.

Enjoy!

 

[eyoungren]

Yes, but can you connect to your Sonoma box via AFP to mount one of its volumes on your, say, Mojave Mac Pro?

OK, so some testing…

I can connect to the M2 MBP (from my Mojave MacPro) via SMB, but yeah AFP is out. I can NOT connect via AFP or SMB from the G4 to the M2. So, that aligns with OP's complaint.

I CAN however, connect via AFP from the M2 to the G4 with no issue.

 

[B S Magnet]

OK, so some testing…

I can connect to the M2 MBP (from my Mojave MacPro) via SMB, but yeah AFP is out. I can NOT connect via AFP or SMB from the G4 to the M2. So, that aligns with OP's complaint.

I CAN however, connect via AFP from the M2 to the G4 with no issue.

That’s because APFS and AFP do not get along at all. This was probably one of the technical reasons for the deprecation of AFP in 2013: APFS was on the way, and there was no plan whatsoever for AFP standards to be amended to recognize and mount APFS volumes.

I verified this a couple of years ago on the MBP on which I set up two partitions. The first partition, the original as HFS+, had Snow Leopard. The new, second partition was formatted as APFS using the dosdude1 patcher for High Sierra.

Whenever I need to connect to the APFS partition remotely, the first requirement is that MBP needs to be booted into High Sierra. If I do an afp://to.its.ip.address, only the SL/HFS+ partition is shown in the selection. If I connect via smb://to.its.ip.address, both the HS/AFPS and SL/HFS+ partitions can be selected.

Even so, when connecting to the SL/HFS+ partition, I prefer accessing it via AFP for, idk, resource fork reasons (i.e., custom icons, honouring chflags hidden calls, etc.)

So yah, as any system running Sonoma will need to have Sonoma installed on APFS, the purpose of Apple including an AFP daemon/server got removed.

 

[barracuda156]

@mectojic, you can use the netatalk 3 building manual -- It works great on Sonoma 14.3.1 on AppleSilicon-based/Intel-based Macs.
If you don't want to build packages, you can use NFS, the client and server are already built into macOS. For vintage Macs, use MacNFS. This extension works even on Mac OS 7.6.1, and allows you to freely connect to the NFS network directory created on any Linux or macOS.

A little more than a year ago, I wrote a cheat sheet about it and published it here and here. At that time, there were no official instructions for assembling netatalk, so the cheat sheet tells about the fork.

Enjoy!

There is a port for netatalk, though it is at 2.2.10 for compatibility reasons.

 

[doctor_dog]

For the record, samba4 should also build and presumably work on PowerPC.

I don't know about SMB4, but I have personally set up SMB3 file shares on 10.5 via Macports and it works just fine. There's a micro-post on it here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/tiger-file-sharing.2380730/post-31971715

The basics is to grab smbd from Macports and edit the files so launchctl uses the Macports smbd binary instead of the native OSX ones. It's pretty handy and I can now edit my 10.5 portfiles from VS Code on my Windows (I know, I know) machines, which is amazing.

To Barracuda's point, it shouldn't be particularly difficult to migrate to SMB4 using this is a blueprint.

 

[MrCheeto]

I recoil at the mention of macports etc. Let me keep this simple. I need to connect to my Monterey-endowed Mac mini from my Quadra 610.

Does Fetch 4 support the same SFTP standards hosted by Monterey? If so...isn't that all I would need to connect?

As far as security, I don't want it to be that easy to access the drive on the mini. So I would plan to create a user in Monterey for "sharing only" name "Quadra". I set up the password for Quadra user. Then enable remote log-in, allow only Quadra to connect with this method, no group access. Then in Sharing, allow Quadra to ONLY access one particular folder on the drive, such as a folder named "68k". I guess then if somebody brute-forced my mini, they would gain access to that one folder.

Edit: Fetch 2 is the latest for my Quadra. No SFTP support at all. I'd simply have to download an FTP host for my Monterey Mac and limit the shared folders to avoid full disk access. Obviously FTP works just fine on the old Quadra as I use it frequently to avoid navigating the unsupported web interface for downloads.

 

[ToniCH]

I'm wondering if I have to go back to an Intel Mac Mini for my home server. I wanted the server to run fast on an SSD, and be low-power, low maintenance and very fast speeds. Is there any recommended Mac for that? The M2 Mini is great for blazing SSD speeds, but just can't deliver AFP...

I am using 2 intel Minis for home servers (they work with my PPCs). My backup server is a 2012 Mini Server with SSD for boot and a spinner for backupping the SSD and additionally 2x spinners in an USB 3 dock for backup other stuff in the network. Well, actually one of the external spinners is for backups and the other one is to backup the first one. For simple drag and drop file transfers between various machines I have a 2009 Mini Server with a SSD for boot and a spinner for backup. Both are running headless (no screen, kbd or mouse). For setup changes etc. I use screen sharing. My network is only gigabit but I feel that they are plenty fast for my use.

The 2012 is running Mojave and the 2009 Snow Leopard (SL). I first installed the 10.6 Server version to the 2009 but found it unnecessary complicated for simple file transfer use, so I swapped to normal SL. On 2012 I have only SMB activated, with 2009 both AFP and SMB are active. BTW. the SL has also FTP setting in file share options which Mojave no longer has in there.

Ps. I used to have a RPi 4B NAS -setup in there but found its maintenance and setup way too complicated vs. Macs so I chose to swap to the Minis. For somebody who works with Linux servers every day it would have been much easier but I had to google way too much every time I needed to do changes to Docker, Portainer, disk shares etc. It was a fun and interesting project to build but not so much to use. And teaching my wife to use the Rpi server successfully was also a too tall of a mountain to climb.

The servers and the dock in all its simplicity, sorry about the cable mess. I should turn the 2012 around too but I've been lazy.

 

[TheShortTimer]

@ToniCH I spotted your A600 and several C64 FDD's (including the 1541) in that attachment.

Do the drives still work?

 

[ToniCH]

@ToniCH I spotted your A600 and several C64 FDD's (including the 1541) in that attachment.

Do the drives still work?

But of course they do.

A600, C64 Breadbin, 1541 II and the original 1541. All more or less upgraded. Below them outside the pic are C64c and a BMC64 (bare metal emulator in new C64c case and with original white kbd) I built recently. 👍

 

[eyoungren]

The servers and the dock in all its simplicity, sorry about the cable mess. I should turn the 2012 around too but I've been lazy.

A couple things…

1. Do you find that the drives on your dock there tend to disappear from the desktop when mounted for a while? I have a Thermaltake two-drive dock I used to use and I had to periodically 'touch' the drives (I had an app for that) so that the dock would not 'sleep' the drives (making them disappear from the desktop). If you don't have that problem it means this is a Thermaltake thing or my drive dock was just defective. I'd argue for the latter if that's the case.

2. Love the 1541 drive.

 

[ToniCH]

A couple things…

1. Do you find that the drives on your dock there tend to disappear from the desktop when mounted for a while? I have a Thermaltake two-drive dock I used to use and I had to periodically 'touch' the drives (I had an app for that) so that the dock would not 'sleep' the drives (making them disappear from the desktop). If you don't have that problem it means this is a Thermaltake thing or my drive dock was just defective. I'd argue for the latter if that's the case.

2. Love the 1541 drive.

Hi,

1. No, never. The spinners do go to sleep but as soon as there is any activity they do spool up. When accessing the server they are always available. I haven't rebooted the machine since I installed the machine. 114 days of uptime since last power outage. And I've never restarted the dock yet. I guess the dock does not sleep but OS sleeps the drives. In my experience it works just like any of my external USB-drive enclosures.

2. thanks! Me too - after I upgraded the ROMs in both drives to JiffyDOS.

 

[eyoungren]

Hi,

1. No, never. The spinners do go to sleep but as soon as there is any activity they do spool up. When accessing the server they are always available. I haven't rebooted the machine since I installed the machine. 114 days of uptime since last power outage. And I've never restarted the dock yet. I guess the dock does not sleep but OS sleeps the drives. In my experience it works just like any of my external USB-drive enclosures.

Yeah, that's got to be a Thermaltake thing then (or my unit was defective). So, yours spool down - but come right back up when accessed. Mine used to straight disappear from the desktop as if I had unmounted the drives. Disk Utility didn't see them once that happened. The only way to get them to reappear was to power the dock off, then back on. As I was using the dock for backups at the time this made it difficult for scheduled backups to occur.

I had an app that would periodically write data to the drives in the dock so that they'd stay 'awake', but it never really worked well. I chalked the whole thing up to the thinking that docks were meant for temporary use and went out and got an enclosure instead. Coupled with the fact that my dock unit would only see one drive when using eSATA (forcing me to use USB 1.0 if I wanted to have both drives) I stopped using it.

Thanks! If I ever get another drive dock I know to avoid Thermaltake.

 

[ToniCH]

So, yours spool down - but come right back up when accessed.

Yes, I have the "put drives to sleep when possible" enabled and it works just fine. There is a few second delay when they are sleeping and start again but I think the energy saving and probably positive effect on drive life is worth it. I rarely access the server with the dock manually, it does most of its backup duties without me. So, when I do I have time to wait that 5+ seconds until the drives are again at full speed.

 

[MrCheeto]

I am using 2 intel Minis for home servers (they work with my PPCs).

You should do an instructional video. That's all the server most people need at home. Couldn't be more straight-forward for the average user.

I think somebody mentioned speeds over the network. I did some tests with my mini attached to a Thunderbolt 2 RAID.

It didn't make a difference whether I used the mini's internal drive (SATA 3, max speeds over 400MB/s according to disk measuring tests on the mini) or the Thunderbolt RAID.

WiFi- Sustained 80MB/s
1Gbe- Sustained 120MB/s
2.5Gbe- Sustained 200MB/s

No matter what I've done, I can't exceed 200MB/s over network. For most needs any drive over USB 3 will max out 1Gbe. Any quality hard drive will do. Far as I can see, consumer WD's are getting about 150MB/s reads.

 

[ToniCH]

You should do an instructional video. That's all the server most people need at home. Couldn't be more straight-forward for the average user.

Its just basic Mac user privilege and file sharing stuff. There must be endless supply of videos and guides on how to do it.

 

[TheShortTimer]

But of course they do.

A600, C64 Breadbin, 1541 II and the original 1541. All more or less upgraded. Below them outside the pic are C64c and a BMC64 (bare metal emulator in new C64c case and with original white kbd) I built recently. 👍

I also have a C64c in addition to my Breadbin and a VIC-20 that I kitted out with a 35k RAM expansion and a SD card device that resembles a miniature 1541 and connects to the serial port.

On my Breadbin I load software using this:

It's menu driven and programs load into the 64 in seconds. Multi-load games are patched to work with it too.

Its just basic Mac user privilege and file sharing stuff. There must be endless supply of videos and guides on how to do it.

Granted - but your video might be better.