Hello fellow geeks :)

[MancunianCreative]

I'm a web designer from Manchester, I have a few Apple products, which have blown me away, since I made the switch a couple of years ago.

 

I had built a PC roughly ten years ago, and when I found a couple of years old tower in my storage unit, I thought I would try and convert it to a Hackintosh.

 

Since doing a bit of reading up on here. I want to now build myself a stonking Hackintosh in G5 case (not original, I know), that will fit in well with the iMacs in the office.

 

I'm primarily looking for it to work as a server and hold all of my work, keep the other iMacs and Macbooks running fast by not getting clogged up.

 

I've not attempted to run a server before, much less build a hackintosh, so I'm excited to see the benefits of doing both for me to work easier.

 

At the moment I work from home, run a 21" iMac, a 27" iMac my MacBook and my girlfriend uses her Macbook here too.

 

 

 

My 27" iMac (1TB) currently stores a lot of our movies and things like that. I would like to build something with a SSD to keep it quick, but have insane storage of 6-8TB so we can stream videos from that - will I need to link up Apple TV to the G5 to do that?

 

Plan to hook it up to a 20 or 23" Cinema display. I'm going to be looking around the forums for some ideas on what components I can use, methods for install in the G5 case, etc

 

Stephen

[Foxic]

Welcome to the forum.

 

First of all I would not recommend using a hackintosh for your server, hacks often experience down time (due to system updates). As a workstation, fine, but as a server I think you'd be better off using a mac mini, unless you never plan on updating your server once it's actually up and running.

 

I did a g5 build at the beginning of the year...absolutely loved every second of it (car was finished so needed something to build).

Its not all that hard really, the hardest bit I found was getting hold of a removable lian-li motherboard tray, once I had that it took me about 3 evenings and a saturday to get everything in. That's using a full ATX mobo, nvidia 480GTX, 280mm radiator (water cooled btw), 2 HDDs, so not a wimpy little micro ATX build, and it all fits with room to spare..ish.

 

Best place to start is here: http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_2012.html

 

For the case, check ebay, be prepared to pay up to £70 + postage for a broken g5, you will be able to re-coup some if not all of the money by selling the components on ebay. Get a complete/'hdds removed' g5 as you can use all the interior metalwork and you will want things like the bolts in the bottom of the dvd drive so you can mount yours properly (and easily) and get the draw cover opening; the metal tray on which to mount said dvd drive etc

 

For the front panel you will need to make up a small wiring loom to the power, led, USB, FireWire and audio headers on your motherboard.

All of the connectors and crimps are available on ebay, I can send you my wiring diagrams but I'll have to scan them in, also be aware that front panel connections differ greatly between models.

 

 

When choosing hardware (mobo/cpu etc) choose parts that are commonly used by the community here, that way you'll have other people to help you through the problems.

 

I hope this helps

[MancunianCreative]

Thanks mate.

How would the mini work best as server without the storage space?!

[Foxic]

with a raid 1 nas/external drive

[MancunianCreative]

Gotcha and I can hook that up to apple tv to stream to the tv too?

[Foxic]

Yes, hook the nas to the network or connect the external drive to the server, add the media to itunes on the server and enable home sharing. You will need the server running itunes constantly or home sharing will close and you wont see the computer through the atv.

 

The only other way to do it would be to jailbreak your atv and install xbmc on it, you can then just find the media on the network drive and play it with no assistance from itunes.

[MancunianCreative]

Thank you very much

[MancunianCreative]

Right looks like this has evolved into 2 stages then

 

 

Stage one, rig up the server/tv/storage

 

This I reckon I can do for under £200. I've found tons of Mac Minis and Apple TVs on ebay cheap. Get a 2TB External HDD to store everything to. Or would a 2TB Time Capsule work better? I've just read that the MAc mini will go into sleep mode to save power and be auto turned on, when the ATV needs it, but only using a Time Capsule?

 

Would I be able to store all my media on there as easy as an external drive?

 

 

 

Stage two, G5 Hackintosh,

 

Not as much of a need to do it any longer I suppose, however, I want one! I also want to push myself to complete something like this. Which is more than good enough reason for me

[Foxic]

If you're going down the time capsule route you will have to either mod it yourself or get one modded as due to apples bad design they will only last a year and a half, then the capacitors within the ac adaptor start to bulge due to heat.

 

See here:

http://timecapsuledead.org/

 

There's a guy who offers the modding service for about £80 here:

http://www.fackrell.me.uk/index.html