4 ms·

3 hours of downtime doesn’t sound too bad for such a cheap setup. Perhaps they didn’t need something better. I’m a bit surprised about the need to have macOS v

3 hours of downtime doesn’t sound too bad for such a cheap setup. Perhaps they didn’t need something better. I’m a bit surprised about the need to have macOS versions in sync though. That sounds unusual.

duggan 3y ago
Agreed on all fronts. I’m curious about their share server setup; my solution would probably be a Debian server exposing AppleTalk. I’ve used that to transfers files between a G3 iMac and an M2 MacBook :) However, this sounds like maybe one of those all in one IT services shops of overworked, underpaid technicians where everything is duct tape and requests go from “my icons have moved how do I send emails now” to this sharing files on Macs thing. Getting out is the only good move.
- walteweiss 3y ago
  Wikipedia says AppleTalk is discontinued. Is there some open source implementation? I would love to make a system that will easily connect my macs with my Linux machines at home.
  - wiredfool 3y ago
    Netatalk used to be the thing, now it’s basically samba on Linux and the shares are pretty straightforward. It’s a bit of a faff on the samba side as there are a bunch of options for auth. NFS is another option, but I mostly use that for r/o media shares.
  - duggan 3y ago
    I misremembered, as @wiredfool mentions, it’s Netatalk https://github.com/Netatalk/netatalk https://github.com/Netatalk/netatalk
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
None of that sounds normal and makes me think there is more to the story. 3 hours downtime seems fine for an ad agency, not sure what “drivers” they were reinstalling on MacOS feels like a windows technician approach and makes me wonder if there was some other weirdness they were doing to fit a square peg into a round hole.
- suddenclarity 3y ago
  > None of that sounds normal and makes me think there is more to the story. It's a reader-contributed column. I give that as much credibility as the fiction on AITA and similar subreddits.
notjulianjaynes 3y ago
The gist I got from reading this was the Mac Mini was serving files to employees at the ad agency, yeah? It doesn't seem that unreasonable to me either that this would be sufficient for the task (depending on the size of the agency). What's missing from this article is what the service provider wanted to charge the ad agency for a new server. An M2 Mac Mini is like $600 USD. I just Google>Shopping searched "2u file server" and the prices for new equipment seemed to start at around $4,000. Is that close to what an IT company like the one from the article would charge or would there be some significant markup?
- bigp3t3 3y ago
  4-10 yeah, easily. Most of the markup is on senior engineer and architect time to setup a solution, which I guess is being measured against the hourly rate of a 1st/2nd line engineer in this story...

duggan 3y ago

Agreed on all fronts. I’m curious about their share server setup; my solution would probably be a Debian server exposing AppleTalk. I’ve used that to transfers files between a G3 iMac and an M2 MacBook :) However, this sounds like maybe one of those all in one IT services shops of overworked, underpaid technicians where everything is duct tape and requests go from “my icons have moved how do I send emails now” to this sharing files on Macs thing. Getting out is the only good move.

walteweiss 3y ago
Wikipedia says AppleTalk is discontinued. Is there some open source implementation? I would love to make a system that will easily connect my macs with my Linux machines at home.
- wiredfool 3y ago
  Netatalk used to be the thing, now it’s basically samba on Linux and the shares are pretty straightforward. It’s a bit of a faff on the samba side as there are a bunch of options for auth. NFS is another option, but I mostly use that for r/o media shares.
- duggan 3y ago
  I misremembered, as @wiredfool mentions, it’s Netatalk https://github.com/Netatalk/netatalk https://github.com/Netatalk/netatalk

whywhywhywhy 3y ago

None of that sounds normal and makes me think there is more to the story. 3 hours downtime seems fine for an ad agency, not sure what “drivers” they were reinstalling on MacOS feels like a windows technician approach and makes me wonder if there was some other weirdness they were doing to fit a square peg into a round hole.

suddenclarity 3y ago
> None of that sounds normal and makes me think there is more to the story. It's a reader-contributed column. I give that as much credibility as the fiction on AITA and similar subreddits.

notjulianjaynes 3y ago

The gist I got from reading this was the Mac Mini was serving files to employees at the ad agency, yeah? It doesn't seem that unreasonable to me either that this would be sufficient for the task (depending on the size of the agency). What's missing from this article is what the service provider wanted to charge the ad agency for a new server. An M2 Mac Mini is like $600 USD. I just Google>Shopping searched "2u file server" and the prices for new equipment seemed to start at around $4,000. Is that close to what an IT company like the one from the article would charge or would there be some significant markup?

bigp3t3 3y ago
4-10 yeah, easily. Most of the markup is on senior engineer and architect time to setup a solution, which I guess is being measured against the hourly rate of a 1st/2nd line engineer in this story...