Thread: Creating my own Seedbox with a Mac Mini Server

I am a regular torrent guy, but I have never heard of Seedbox until I joined this site.

However, the monthly price of seedbox service, plus the set up, might be somewhat painstaking.



Plus, I'm on a mac as well.

I am considering getting a Mac Mini server, and set up my own seedbox. Do you know any advice on setting up a really good Lion Server based seedbox?

I don't think it's a good idea:

• The prices for a mac mini server start at $600.
• Seedboxes are hosted in a datacenter connected with 1, 2 or 10GBits connection links. It's either impossible or extremely expensive for you to only get a 100MBits home connection.
• People use seedboxes also for privacy reason you have to consider that too. You will be (I assume so) using your home connection unprotected. You will have no excuses (hacked wifi ...) if you get caught.
• Setting up a homeserver on a mac, which you want to use for seeding is a lot more complicated than setting up a seedbox on a Linux VPS. If you don't know Linux there are a lot of good setupscript floating around (if you get a VPS with root access you can probably start using your seedbox in less than one hour)
• You will also have no technical support, because, judging from the tone of this thread, I think you will need it.
• I don't think you will find a lot of advice on setting up a seedbox on a Lion server.

If you use your mac mini server for 2 years (assuming you will get the cheapest one) it makes $25 a month, but you also need to take the price for your more expensive home connection into account (unless you live in Romania) and, which is the most important factor in my opinion, the endless hours you will probably need setting this up correctly and if you get caught you will get another large bill.

If you get a seedbox you also have an extra layer of protection (you won't use your home connection for torrenting), you will have a much faster connection (depending on your plan) and you have technical support. It's their problem if the server isn't configured properly, not yours.

I do have a private homeserver, but it's a really old one which I only use to autosync the files from my VPS/Seedbox.
I hope this helps your decision making progress.

(I could find endless reasons why I don't think that's a smart move)

Unless I misunderstood something in your post, it's exceedingly unlikely that a DIY seedbox will work very well.

A seedbox by definition is a computer, usually a remotely accessed computer that sits on a very fast network connection. Most seedbox advantages stem from that very fast, low latency network connectivity that is rarely seen outside of datacenters. In addition, seedboxes often have generous or unlimited traffic caps whereas many home connections either have traffic limits or providers that endeavor to throttle bittorrent traffic.

Lets look at this in a little more detail. A entry level 100GB/100 Mbps/unlimited traffic seedbox (with sub 10 ms latency) might cost $15/month. Home connections vary widely in speed and cost but mine for instance is 100/10 Mbps and if I want unlimited traffic, costs about 8x as much as an entry level seedbox. And the seedbox is much higher performance, having a much faster upload and lower latency. So swarm connections will flock to an entry level seedbox vs my home connection. Not to mention the privacy advantages of having the first point of connection being somewhere else other than your residence.

Unless you have an unusually fast home connection with an upload speed of 50+ Mbps and latency < 10 ms.. I don't think that you will see performance close to what an entry level seedbox will offer.






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Thanks.

But is there any seedbox that will work with a Mac, and has Mac OS server installed? (since this way, I can manage easier)

I would defer to someone who knows of such a seedbox. But it seems unlikely that you would find a seedbox running a Mac OS. They will inevitably be running some flavour of linux.








__________________________
no good deed goes unpunished

Originally Posted by muffinbest

Thanks.

But is there any seedbox that will work with a Mac, and has Mac OS server installed? (since this way, I can manage easier)

I was as lost as you just last weekend. I set up my seedbox with Bytesized-hosting.com. Within an hour, I was set up and controlling things with my macbook pro. It doesn't matter whether you run a mac or pc.