Guide

Mac mini colocation in the EU: how it works

Send your own Mac mini to a data center and run it around the clock. When colocation beats renting or keeping it at home, the exact macOS settings to change before you ship, and how to secure a Mac with a public IP.

45 minutes, updated 2026-09-15

You own a Mac mini. Maybe it replaced a build server, maybe it came out of an office refresh, maybe it just sits in a drawer. Colocation means sending it to a data center, where it runs around the clock on a proper connection while it stays yours.

This guide explains when colocation makes sense, and walks through everything to set on the Mac before it leaves your hands.

Colocate, rent, or keep it at home

	At home or in the office	Colocation	Renting a hosted Mac
Hardware	Yours	Yours	The host's
Monthly cost	Your electricity and internet	A flat fee	A higher flat fee
Public IP address	Often not, or it changes	Yes, fixed	Yes, fixed
Upload speed	Whatever your line gives	Data center port	Data center port
On your home network	Yes	No	No
If the hardware fails	Your problem	Your problem, the host helps with power and cables	The host replaces it
Ready in	Now	After shipping	Minutes

Keep it at home if you only need it on your own network and a dropped connection costs you nothing.
Colocate if you already own the Mac and need it reachable from anywhere, all the time.
Rent if you don't own a Mac yet, or you would rather not deal with hardware failures.

The cost math

At MacDuty, colocation is €30 a month per Mac mini, whatever the model. Renting a Mac mini M4 with 16 GB and 256 GB costs €109 a month, or €87 a month paid yearly.

If you already own the Mac, colocation costs a fraction of renting the same machine.
If you would buy a Mac to colocate, divide its price by the difference between renting and colocating. That is how many months it takes to pay for itself.

the arithmetic

months to break even = purchase price / (monthly rent - €30)

Remember that a rented Mac comes with same-day hardware replacement. A colocated Mac that fails is yours to repair or replace.

Which Mac minis make sense

Any Mac mini with Apple silicon, from M1 onwards. They use very little power, run cool and handle years of continuous work.

Intel Mac minis are a poor fit for a data center. They draw several times the power for far less work, and at their age they fail more often. Most hosts, MacDuty included, don't take them.

Prepare the Mac before you ship

Once the Mac is in a rack, only you can log in to it. Nobody at the data center can type a password or click through a dialog. Set everything below while the Mac is still on your desk, then test it.

1. Update macOS

Install every pending update and restart. A large update in the first week, run remotely, is an avoidable risk.

2. Start up automatically after a power failure

In System Settings, Energy, turn on Start up automatically after a power failure, and turn on the option that prevents automatic sleep.

Or in Terminal:

terminal

sudo pmset -a autorestart 1
sudo pmset -a sleep 0 disksleep 0

Without this, a Mac that loses power stays off until someone presses the button.

3. Decide about FileVault

With FileVault on, the Mac stops at a password prompt every time it boots, before any network service starts. In a rack, nobody can type that password for you.

Check your host's policy. At MacDuty, FileVault must be off, or you must be able to unlock it yourself.

If you turn FileVault off, the disk is no longer encrypted at rest. Keep sensitive data off the Mac, or encrypt it at the application level.

4. Turn on remote access

In System Settings, General, Sharing:

Remote Login for SSH
Screen Sharing if you want the desktop

Allow access only for the user accounts that need it.

5. Set up SSH keys, and turn off password login

Your Mac will have a public IP address. Automated password guessing starts within minutes of any SSH port appearing on the internet.

Copy your key to the Mac from your own computer:

your own computer

ssh-copy-id you@the-mac-on-your-network

on the Mac

sudo tee /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/100-keys-only.conf <<'EOF'
PasswordAuthentication no
KbdInteractiveAuthentication no
EOF

Restart Remote Login (turn it off and on in Sharing), and test the key login again before you disconnect. If the key doesn't work, you have locked yourself out of a machine in another country.

6. Protect Screen Sharing

Screen Sharing on a public address is a bigger target than SSH. The safer approach is to reach it through an SSH tunnel:

your own computer

ssh -N -L 5901:127.0.0.1:5900 you@your-mac-address

Then connect your screen sharing app to localhost:5901. For a stricter setup, allow Screen Sharing only through the tunnel and block port 5900 in the firewall.

7. Turn on the firewall

In System Settings, Network, Firewall, turn it on. Allow only the services you use.

8. Enter the network details from your host

Your host tells you in advance how the Mac will be addressed on their network. Configure it exactly as they say while the Mac is still with you, and write the settings down.

9. Test everything, then back up

Restart the Mac with no keyboard or display attached. Check that it comes back, and that you can log in over SSH. Then pull the power cable, plug it back in, and check again.

Back up everything you care about. Parcels get lost.

Ship it

Send the bare Mac mini. No power cable, no adapters, no accessories. The data center uses its own.
Keep the original box. It is what the Mac comes home in if you ever want it back.
Pack it well and insure the parcel for the value of the Mac.

Once it is racked

Stays yours

The Mac mini itself, and its box
macOS, your software, your data
Updates, backups and remote access
A hardware failure: yours to repair or replace

Ours to run

Rack space, power and cooling
The network port, the public address and the traffic
A switched outlet you control from the dashboard
Hands on the cables, never inside the Mac

The hardware never changes hands.

What the data center does: mounts, labels and cables the Mac, and gives you control of its power outlet so you can cut and restore power yourself when macOS hangs. At MacDuty that includes traffic graphs for your port, and hands-on help that doesn't require opening the Mac.

What stays with you: macOS, your software, your data, and the hardware itself. A good colocation host does not open your Mac or replace its parts.

What people colocate a Mac mini for

A CI runner for Xcode builds, from a Mac a team outgrew on their desks.
An always-on AI agent, away from personal devices.
Local AI models on a high-memory M4 Pro or M5 Pro.
A media library or backup target that doesn't depend on a home connection.

Checklist before you ship

Apple silicon Mac mini, M1 or newer
macOS fully updated
Starts automatically after a power failure, never sleeps
FileVault off, or you can unlock it remotely
Remote Login on, for the right users only
SSH key login works, password login off
Screen Sharing only through an SSH tunnel
Firewall on
Network details from your host entered and written down
Survives a restart and a power cut with nothing attached
Everything important backed up
Bare Mac packed, original box kept

Why colocate with MacDuty

€30 a month per Mac mini, any Apple silicon model.
Power included and not metered.
10 TB of traffic a month on a gigabit port, a public IPv4 address and an IPv6 block.
Your own switched outlet, controlled from the dashboard.
Hosted in the EU, in the same racks as our rented Macs.