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I'm wondering if anyone out there has had any experience using a Mac Pro trashcan as a file server for a medium business. My concern is that it won't be able to handle the network traffic for 60+ connected users (AFP).

The reason I am not wanting to use a NAS or something like that is that I need to have dropbox on the server syncing the shared volume.

Does anyone have any experience with a scenario like this?

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You should reconsider a NAS because using a Mac Pro is complete overkill when a NAS will do exactly what you want including sync to public cloud services like DropBox, OneDrive, Box.net, etc.

I am a fan of Synology products because whether you are using their entry level single disk NAS devices or their enterprise grade rack mount solutions, the software and features are the same. Specifically, to your question, it includes Cloud Sync which will sync up with DropBox.

Also, consider moving from AFP to SMB. AFP has been deprecated in Yosemite in favor of SMB2. AFP is also not compatible with the new APFS. However, most NAS devices will still provide AFP for backward compatibility.

Finally, I suggest you utilize their "NAS calculator" because sizing a file sharing solution is more than just how many people it needs to serve, but the type of files, how much space, your iops requirement etc.

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  • This is really helpful. Thank you. I'm going to look into this stuff.
    – Josh Reep
    Jun 19, 2017 at 18:04
  • How does this work with Spotlight? If I wanted to use something like alfred how would that work?
    – Josh Reep
    Jun 19, 2017 at 18:18
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    I am not familiar with alfred so I can't talk to that point, but you can include Spotlight indexes using mdutil Type man mdutil in Terminal for more info.
    – Allan
    Jun 19, 2017 at 18:27
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    Spotlight will work if you 1)attach the NAS folder/drive to your Mac, and 2) tell Spotlight to scan it
    – cmason
    Jun 19, 2017 at 18:27
  • I ended up purchasing a Synology NAS and it has been working great so far. The Dropbox (Cloud Sync) functionality is really pretty great. It's been a couple of months, and it's proven to be a reliable solution.
    – Josh Reep
    Sep 18, 2017 at 14:36

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