Snow Leopard Server combined with Snow Leopard OS

Question

I have a MacPro (4x1 TB Drives, 16GB, RAID Card, 2 x Quad-Core Intel Xeon 2.8 GHz) that has MacOS 10.5 installed (including MS Windows running under VMWare Fusion).
The RAID setup is shown at https://www.radii.org/doc
The computer is used as an everyday workhorse (running OS 10.5.7 on Volume RS1, with Volume R1V2 partitioned into 2 data and file/document stores).
Given the specs of the machine, I plan to setup Snow Leopard Server (Raid 0) also — on a separate partition so that when the system on RS1 freezes, the server does not have to be crashed also.
Is there any advantage in partitioning the volume OSXSERVER to install Snow Leopard Server to perform a number of tasks:
1. provide first level backup and coordinate backup of data to an external/offsite filestore in the clouds for two Microsoft Small Business servers, plus about 5 Mac and Windows desktop machines
2. Provide a mail server
3. iCal server
4. address book server.
The above assumes that I can run both OSs simultaneously — is that possible, or does the system for everyday usage need to be virtualised within the Server OS?? If not, which OS will manage access to the processors?

Answer 1

I guess my biggest concern is the frequency with which Mac OSX gets itself tied in knots and a reboot is the only way out of the mess.
I haven't seen that myself, personally. About the only time any of my machines get rebooted is after software update.
Of course, server systems tend to be more focussed than client systems, so that might help too - the server is typically setup, configured and left to do its thing. It's not like you're constantly launching and quitting different applications throughout the day.
However, I know from years of experience with desktop systems in a variety of flavours that they will need to be rebooted at least once a week.
Ahh, there's the Windows-thinking coming through.
I have Mac OS X Server systems that, quite literally, have not been rebooted in years. Most of them have months of uptime. Of course, this means that not all my systems are running the latest OS updates but that's a call I've made.
in general, the smaller the capacity (memory, speed, HD) the more often they need to be rebooted.
Sure, but that's a matter of right-sizing your server for the load you're putting on it.
Again, there's a difference between client and server installations - client systems tend to jump between active processes with minimal background processing, whereas server systems tend to run more focussed tasks.
I have found that software such as MS Office has been highly unreliable in the last couple of years — I still get Excel saying that it 'had to close' sometime in about 10% of the times I am using it.
Right, but you're not running Office on your server, right?
I was hoping there would be a better solution than having to reboot the server — or crash it when the system freezes with a kernal panic brought on by a desktop app
Sure - don't run a desktop app on your server
If you do see that need, then run another virtual machine for your desktop apps. That means you've got one 'master' OS running multiple virtual machines - one per server process, plus another one for desktop/GUI apps.
Or, run all your server processes on a single server with sufficient resource (CPU, disk, memory, etc.) for the tasks you're running, and get an iMac or a Mini for those desktop tasks. Be cheaper that way, anyway.