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Fairly recent Mac minis are listed on Apple’s refurb page. Where can you find a used Mac mini? OWC often has pre-owned minis available. The minimum operating system requirement is macOS 10.9 Mavericks, so even an early 2009 Mac mini can fit the bill. You don’t need a new operating system to turn a Mac mini into a media server. We chose one with the ability to run modern versions of macOS (10.15 Catalina and 11 Big Sur in particular). For the purpose of this article, we looked no further than the OWC website to find a Mac mini. There’s another very compelling reason to use a Mac mini – older models are inexpensive.

Why use a Mac mini instead of a Mac with a built-in screen? You probably have a large-screen TV to watch your content on, and the mini can use that as a “monitor”. Stream online content and make use of the media you've already bought and paid for. You can stream online content and make use of the media you’ve already bought and paid for. With fast internet service and purchased physical media, a media server running Plex offers the best of both worlds.

Have you made a large investment in music CDs and movies or TV shows on DVD or Blu-Ray? Don’t buy that again in a streaming format – use that investment by copying the physical media content to your server.

With a local media server, there’s no delay or concern about bandwidth. That could make streaming movies, TV shows, and music almost impossible.

You might be living in an area with very slow Internet service.

Why build a media server when an Apple TV can provide just about every type of media you’d want? There are a few good reasons: These are illegal and should not be used or installed. NOTE: Several of these alternatives provide third-party add-ons that allow free streaming of paid video content. Others that you may wish to consider include Emby, Kodi, Stremio, and Universal Media Server. Why Plex? It’s the most popular media server app for macOS. In this article, we’re using a Mac mini as the hardware and Plex as the application to organize the media. Media servers range from servers that provide video on demand to smaller personal computers or NAS (Network Attached Storage) for the home. Wikipedia defines a media server as follows:Ī media server is a computer appliance or an application software that stores digital media (video, audio or images) and makes it available over a network.

Read along to see how we were able to transform a 2014 Mac mini into a home media server. Macs have good longevity and older units are usable for a variety of purposes other than day-to-day work. The old 21.5-inch iMac becomes a FaceTime “videophone” for Grandma. An old MacBook becomes a school laptop for one of the kids. Old Macs never die, they just get reused. From top, an Apple SuperDrive, the 2014 Mac mini, and an 8TB OWC miniStack drive