Apple 10.6 manual Planning Server Usage

ÂÂ Home folders for network users can be consolidated onto one server or distributed among various servers. Although you can move home folders, you might need

to change a large number of user and share point records, so devise a strategy that will persist for a reasonable amount of time. For information about home folders, see Mac OS X Server help or Mac OS X Server Resources website at www.apple.com/server/macosx/resources/.

ÂÂ Some services offer ways to control the amount of disk space used by individual users. For example, you can set up home folder and mail quotas for users. Consider whether using quotas will offer a way to maximize the disk usage on a server that stores home folders and mail databases. The additional information at

Mac OS X Server Resources website at www.apple.com/server/macosx/resources/ describes home folder and user mail quotas, and service-wide mail quotas.

ÂÂ Disk space requirements are also affected by the type of files a server hosts. Creative environments need high-capacity storage to accommodate large media files, but elementary school classrooms have more modest file storage needs. The additional information at Mac OS X Server Resources website at www.apple.com/server/macosx/resources/ describe file sharing.

ÂÂ If you’re setting up a streaming media server, allocate enough disk space to accommodate a specific number of hours of streamed video or audio. For hardware and software requirements and for a setup example, see additional information in online help or at Mac OS X Server Resources website at www.apple.com/server/macosx/resources/ .

ÂÂ The number of NetBoot client computers you can connect to a server depends on the server’s Ethernet connections, the number of users, the amount of available RAM and disk space, and other factors. DHCP service needs to be available to the clients and can be provided by a different server than the NetBoot server. For NetBoot capacity planning guidelines, see additional information at Mac OS X Server Resources website at www.apple.com/server/macosx/resources/ .

ÂÂ Mac OS X Server offers extensive support for Windows users. You can consolidate Windows user support on servers that provide PDC services, or you can distribute services for Windows users among different servers.

ÂÂ If you want to use software RAID to stripe or mirror disks, you’ll need two or more drives (but not FireWire drives) on a server. For more information, see online Disk Utility Help.

Before finalizing decisions about which servers will host specific services, familiarize yourself with information in the administration guides for the services you want to deploy.

Chapter 2    Planning Server Usage

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