Just this evening I installed DVR on my 2018 Mac mini, and it works great.
Then I remembered my old 13 inch MBP that never gets used anymore.
Intel core 2 duo
2.26 GHz, 8gbRAM, L2 Cache 3MB,Bus speed 1.07GHz
It has10.11.6 El Capitan and a 500 GB SSD
Would this be sturdy/ stable enough?
"Channels DVR Server can be installed on macOS Yosemite (10.10) or newer."
Looking at a OS support chart 2009 MBP latest OS it can run is El Captain 10.11.X
So yes.
I can't speak as far as performance though.
The CPU in the 2009 Macbook beats the Geekbench scores on the Raspberry Pi 4 which is certified to run Channels DVR.
You may need an external Firewire drive to store and record a lot of shows but the internal 500GB SSD should work fine. It may get prematurely worn out by a lot of writing
It only has USB 2.0 ports so those will likely not be fast enough for a lot of recording and watching.
What are your concerns with just leaving it running on the Mac mini? Channels runs in the background and doesn’t require very many resources to run unless you are transcoding. You won’t even know it’s runnning. If you decide to utilize remote streaming, it would be very nice to have the intel hardware quick sync that the Mac mini has. Raspberry pi is limited to a single transcode and the mini would easily do 3+.
Commercial detection would be much faster and power consumption would be like $20 a year to run the mini 24/7 vs $10 for the mbp and $4 for a pi. I’m sure all 3 would do the job but the mini would definitely be my choice.
Rice, admittedly, I’m an old fart( no excuse)
My main concern is, in general, just premature wear for having it on 24/7.
I have the 3.2 i7 and 32 GB RAM, plus the 1tB internal storage.
I have it recording onto a 3 TB Mercury Elite HDD
So yeah, definitely powerful enough.
I’ve never had previous macs on constantly.
Not worried about $$ as far as electricity goes, mainly about over use.
Again, I’m older and am not as up to date about current tech/ durability.
Thanks for your input.
Drewman, I have a LaCie FW enclosures with a 500 HDD, so I could either use the internal 500SSD OR external HDD on the old MBP.
The mini is nice because it’s newer and more capable, it just made me think that as far as wear and tear goes, the old MBP is basically disposable, as I haven’t used it in years.
Would I be able to install the DVR server software on that to try out its performance, given that I have it already installed on my MAC Mini?
Really new to this stuff. But I’m learning, thanks to help from you guys...
Thanks for the input
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Easy enough to try the MBP here is the guide to migrate server. Stick with the internal drive if you think storage is enough.
But the answer to premature wear is that your Mac Mini can be on all the time. In fact, for non-SSD drives (like your 3TB), they usually last longer the less you turn them off and back on (so on all the time is good). The only benefit to it sleeping is to save a very minimal amount of electricity.
I just upgraded to a 4TB drive. Restore worked flawlessly. Just amazing. One of the many reasons Channels is worth the money. 
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