Your energy-star rated 20"+ screen (with an LCD backlight) typically consumes 20W when on and 0W when powered off by the computer.
So I believe the Mini would consume, on average under use, about 55W, which is a rather commendable figure for an official desktop and not a nettop. Adding peripherals will obviously effect this, a portable hard drive can pull up to 18W (maxing out the USB power supply). I'd definitely say opting for a bigger HDD on purchase is better than getting an external drive.
I do have a question for Mac Aficionado's, is the OS X Server akin to Windows Server 2008 or the Ultimate editions of windows? I was wondering if the Mini 1TB with OS X Server is as usable and accessible to a new user as any standard OS X (I'm rarely a Mac user, but my next purchase is likely to be Mac, so I definitely don't want to get my ass bitten by either losing out or screwing myself over by lack of knowledge when making a purchase).
We run a few Mac OS X Servers at work. Unfortunately, they are a few versions old (2 are Panther, 1 Tiger). They are probably closer to Windows Server 2008 than Ultimate editions of windows. But neither is probably a good comparison.
The core system is your standard Mac OS X. I feel odd when I log onto our servers and see an iTunes icon. So you won't miss anything by getting the Mac OSX Server.
The "server" part is more like having all of the capabilities of a Linux server, with a nice easy to use GUI to configure them. The newer versions include some Mac specific services, but for the most part, it's like having a Linux server and a Mac Desktop in one package.
I think the main benefit is licensing... with the "normal" version I think you are restricted as to how many people can connect (10?). But the server version is unlimited. This probably doesn't matter to you, but the Mini server would be nice for a department file server, or something like that.
If I were getting a Mini, I'd get the Server one just for the hard drives. Don't let the "server" part discourage you... it's still a Mac.
From my superficial experience with OSX Server, it's like Windows Server in the sense that it is OSX Plus. All the normal stuff is there, then server specific stuff is there. That includes both nice GUIs on top of open source stuff (Samba, etc), and nice GUIs on top of totally custom stuff (Calendar sharing, Wikis, etc).
If you have normal web-serving, open source using needs, regular OSX will be just fine. Be sure you really need server before buying, regular OSX can do any server type things that linux can.
So I believe the Mini would consume, on average under use, about 55W, which is a rather commendable figure for an official desktop and not a nettop. Adding peripherals will obviously effect this, a portable hard drive can pull up to 18W (maxing out the USB power supply). I'd definitely say opting for a bigger HDD on purchase is better than getting an external drive.
I do have a question for Mac Aficionado's, is the OS X Server akin to Windows Server 2008 or the Ultimate editions of windows? I was wondering if the Mini 1TB with OS X Server is as usable and accessible to a new user as any standard OS X (I'm rarely a Mac user, but my next purchase is likely to be Mac, so I definitely don't want to get my ass bitten by either losing out or screwing myself over by lack of knowledge when making a purchase).