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Released on October 23, 2012. Core i5 or Core i7 Processor. Apple Fusion Drive.

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2.3GHz i7/16GB enough for a print server?

Recently, my HP M401n got bit by the Apple Photos AirPrint bug where it prints blanks. HP hasn't updated the firmware on the M401 since 2021, so if there's no fix from Apple, I'm hosed with native RIP processing using AirPrint natively on the M401. Whatever, I moved to Lexmark but I'm happy with their hardware, but the M401 still works. No reason to get rid of it when I can make it work with $40 software especially when it solves the AirPrint problem... Not to mention cheap toner.

However, the Mac I picked is pretty old, but it was also on the shelf with a good config (2.3 Quad i7/16GB/240GB SSD) so I went with this for testing and potentially the final "server" I setup for a while. I'm thinking of transitioning the server setup to a M1 Mini with 16GB/1TB in the future due to how old this Mini is, and the OS maxing at Catalina.

Is there any reason to do this with a M1, or should an old 2012 Mini be plenty?

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I'm still using my 2012 Mini as a media server, I doubt a print server use would be that taxing.

A M1 Mini would be way to powerful as a print server. If you have a second use then it might make sense.

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Maybe it will be a little slow with complex documents, but realistically the i7 should help there. But that's all I thought could potentially cause an issue.

Looks like ~16-22% of the CPU cycles with a 26.70 CPU time, so maybe the i7 is a huge help

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@nick - A print server is only processing the doc into the printer language, not rendering it thats already done (photos or object based graphics)


As an example a Postscript printer didn't compose the Postscript rendering, it only processed the instructions to create the image on the paper.

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@danj I have remote access setup just in case but I know that’s mostly low usage.

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Nick will be eternally grateful.
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