I'm a big fan of Apple industrial design, and have now run SBS 2003, 2008 and 2011 on various Mac Mini configurations with pretty decent results. The latest hardware revision for the Mac Mini in Late 2012 finally meets the hardware requirements for SBS 2011, so I made the upgrade. I thought I'd pass on some lessons learned.
- Purchase 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 Mac mini (MD388LL/A)
- Upgrade to 16GB (2x8) 1600MHz DDR3 RAM
- Upgrade to 256GB SSD and place original HDD in USB 3.0 enclosure
- Using Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool, prepare 64-bit Windows 7 and SBS 2011 bootable USB drives from ISO images (you’ll need both)
- Prepare SBS 2011 bootable USB drive using Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool
- Hold Option/Alt key during boot, select external Macintosh HD, and boot into Mac OS X
- Using App Store, upgrade to latest Mac OS and Mac Mini EFI Firmware Update (requires reboot)
- Using Disk Utility, format SSD as Mac OS Extended partition using GUID Partition Table (default)
- Using Boot Camp, download Windows Support Software to your SBS 2011 bootable USB drive (will create WindowsSupport directory)
- Using Boot Camp, select Install Windows 7, insert Win7 bootable USB drive, and proceed with default settings
- When Mac reboots, quickly pull both external USB drives and insert the SBS 2011 bootable USB drive
- Hold Option/Alt during boot and select the USB Windows boot option
- Choose Custom Install, show Drive Options (advanced) and delete the Disk 0 Partition partition (not the one labeled BOOTCAMP)
- Select the Disk 0 Unallocated Space above the BOOTCAMP partition, then hit Next
- After Windows Server install is complete and you’re at the SBS Setup page, hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and run explorer.exe from the Task Manager
- Using Disk Management, delete the BOOTCAMP partition and Extend the active partition to use all remaining space on the drive
- Install drivers from WindowsSupport folder on USB drive (Intel Chipset, IntelHDGraphicsSetup.exe and BroadcomEthernet64.exe)
- Close Explorer windows and proceed with SBS Setup
Boot Camp requires a 64-bit operating system on this hardware, but it doesn't recognize that SBS 2011 satisfies that requirement. Therefore, you need the Win7 x64 install image to fake it out. The only really tricky part is the reboot from Mac OS X to the EFI partition that's installed by Boot Camp on the SSD. You've got to boot from the EFI partition that Boot Camp just installed on the SSD, so it's important to get the old Apple drive out of the picture quickly so it doesn't detect the EFI partition there. Getting to the Option/Alt key by the boot chime after this swap can be difficult, but if you don't make it just reset and try again.