Low Powered Mini-Server for the Masses 351
ServerSam writes "Sudhian has a review up on EmergeCore's "IT in a Box" IT100. Designed for small business use, it comes equipped with a Transmeta Crusoe 533MHz, 128MB RAM, 20GB IBM TravelStar, 802.11b Access Point, and boots from a 32MB Flash card. The IT100 is powered by a 60 watt external PSU and is smaller than a PS2."
I like the YellowDog/Terrasoft briQ more... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/briQ/in tro.shtml [terrasoftsolutions.com]
Netwinder (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
I so happen to have one of "those god awful 'mini' 'cube' PCs" and it's fantastic, thank you very much. I used to be a vocal opponent of those things because they were kludgy and underperformant, but I got myself one of them "mailboxes" some time ago and it's been great. I had the mother of all great big cases, the Antec 1080 [antec-inc.com], which I loved (and still do, for its purpose it's the best case out there), but I realised that for normal PC operation, something that weighs 35 kilos and has eight fans is overkill.
When it was time to upgrade, I was simply going to get the same only smaller [antec-inc.com], but a friend sold me into getting one of "those god awful 'mini' 'cube' PCs [shuttle.com]" and I must say, it's one of the best computing choices I've made.
With a combo drive it can do everything a regular PC can, without significantly more noise/heat, while being smaller, lighter, and looking damn cool in black. I already upgraded the system twice with no worries, and as the time draws near to update the system again, I'm thinking about going 64-bit, but whatever I do you can bet it's going to come in a tiny black box [shuttle.com].
TigerDirect (Score:2, Interesting)
I Don't know about this... (Score:3, Interesting)
1.) It includes 802.llb. How strange. Does anybody really feel a wireless server is a good thing? With 5 or 6 clients on an 802.llb network, things other than simple, tiny file transfers are going to start to slow down alot.
2.) Crusoe Processor - I mean, why not a celeron? Heat issues? Power consumption? Why use a processor intended for mobile applications in a server??
3.) The price - this thing should not break a grand. I work at a fairly major (Fortune 1000) computer reseller, and If I had a small office customer call me looking for an inexpensive server, I could sell them an IBM X series 205 for $769. It has a P4 2.4 GHZ and 256 megs of RAM. Its an honest to god server class machine.
Unless you have 8 guys with notebooks that travel and need a traveling server, what is the point of this? And for the price, if you did have those 8 guys, you could jsut have a 9th notebook, and have better specs, AND be battery powered.
Re:"The IT100 did it all at a cost of $1,395" (Score:1, Interesting)
Where the hell did you get that idea ? Did you personnally tested all the notebooks available out there ? Or do you have any pointers to back up that assertion ?
I personnally use my laptop as my internet gateway, and the thing is on 24*7. I never needed it to stay up more than a month, but I never kept it off more than a couple of hours in between uptimes. It is still working great yet being ready 2 years old (and I've been using it that way for a year). I don't use it for serious server duty though, but would you use a plug and play system like the IT100 one for any serious matter ?
mini-itx + Transmeta chips = interesting market? (Score:2, Interesting)
Since they are low power parts that require minimal cooling, it seems almost obvious to me as an opportunity to compete (from my "50,000 foot" viewpoint).
Re:No Fault Tolerance? No Server (Score:3, Interesting)
RAID alos wont protect from...
Viruses/Trogens that wipe the file-system.
Bad memory sticks that cause file-system corruption.
Flaky RAID controllers that randomly screw up a stripe now and then.
A netowrk card that sends bad packets and causes the filesystem to bork.
Bugs in your uber-filesystem that cause corruption. (NTFS I'm looking at *YOU*)
Power spikes that go through tour surge protectory, into your power supply and through the 12v line that connects to the hard-drives and frys the controllers.
New useres playing with the rm command.
"What do you meand, the server doesen't have a 'Recycle Bin'?? !!? ?? "
All the these things *have* happend to me.
Form factor yes, but on servers why?? (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong, I like small, light laptops, and LCDs. Attention to form factor makes a lot of sense when you're lugging something around, or you want to have, say, some desk space.
Now, servers are another beast. They sit there and do one thing. It doesn't really matter where they sit, so within reasonable limits, their size doesn't matter. They should also pretty much sit in one place, so why is wireless a selling point?
Power consumption does make a difference cost wise but you're overpaying for this thing so much that you can pretty well throw cost arguments out the window.
That leaves heat and noise as the remaining concerns. For heat, just add some fans, it's not that hard, and you don't even need to do that if you're using the machine so lightly that the a 533 with 128 mb of ram will do ya. Why do you care about noise (within reasonable limits) again? It's a server, you can put it wherever you want! How many times do I have to repeat that?
What is this? It's a gimmick... say it's an affordable server and someone who doesn't know about alternatives will think it is, rather than the old, overpriced laptop without an LCD display that it really is.
My 2c anyways.