Small Form SMP Boxen and Laptops - Where Are They? 25
3ryon asks: "I've been charged with procuring a high-end portable server containing two 1Ghz CPU's, 30 Gig of hard drive, and 1 Gig of RAM, all under $20,000. Ideally this would exist in a laptop footprint. Does this exist anywhere? My current idea is to buy a 1U server from Dell and a 1U LCD/Keyboard module and have a machine shop build an enclosure for them. Besides my need (a portable video encoder), I bet that sales people would love to be able to bring this sort of power to a client site." Even though computing technology has grown much smaller thru the years, I'm not quite sure SMP laptops are a possiblilty yet. A major concern of putting so much computing power in such a small space is twofold: heat and the electrical power needed to run it. I'm not quite sure that the manufacturers have found a way around that, yet. Is it possible to get SMP power in a smaller footprint than your typical desktop, however?
Re:Sort of what you are looking for (Score:1)
It's a visit to the gas chambers for grammar nazi (Score:1)
Re:Why a single system? (Score:1)
Another one: MaxPac (Score:1)
http://www.maxvision.com/MaxPac_index.cfm
The 5200 is dual proc one screen.
The 7200NLE has dual procs and monitors.
5200 Features and Specifications
-Single or Dual Pentium III, 500MHz through 1GHz 128MB to 2GB Main Memory, 4 DIMM sockets, PC100 ECC
-3Dlabs' Oxygen GVX1 OpenGL graphics accelerator, 32MB memory, DFP MDR20 connector and SVGA connector
-56K Modem PCI V.90
-10/100 Fast Ethernet RJ45 connector
-Choice of 9.1 or 18.2GB Ultra2 SCSI hard drive @ 10,000rpm
-LS-120 superfloppy drive (supports 1.44MB and 120MB media)
-24X CD-ROM, DVD optional
-I/O Ports: 2 Serial, Parallel, 2 USB, PS/2 keyboard and mouse, audio in/out, external Ultra2 SCSI for external disk and tape
-Direct digital 17" flat panel display, 1280 x 1024, 24-bit true color, 170 NITs, 160 degree wide viewing angle
-Removable accessory pac
-300 watts power, either 120VAC or 240VAC
-PCI expansion slot up to 9.5 inches, available power: 10 watts
-18.6" x 13.6" x 7.5", all aluminum construction; weight fully configured: 32 pounds
Hmm... (Score:3)
Wow...a chance I could be first for once...;P
Buy It Turnkey (Score:1)
Why build it when you can buy the whole thing for less money. Granted you are locked into Windows and a proprietary hardware combination, but thats pretty much the nature of video.... I have a FAST VMSTUDIO that we still use, the capture card is almost 8 years old.
some serious considerations (Score:1)
You require 1GHz CPUs. The GHz mobile P3 isn't even out yet (although it will be soon). A few (reckless) notebook makers have begun putting desktop P3s in, but they're very hot. 2 would be unmanageable.
I can only assume that battery power is a non-issue. Otherwise, the battery life would be like an hour, tops. Especially if you go the do it yourself route. As such, I'd suggest doing the 1U rack thing and just don't worry about battery stuff.
Sort of what you are looking for (Score:5)
Tadpole [tadpole.co.uk] is sort of what you are looking for. They make UltraSparc and HP PA-RISC based laptops. It doesn't look like they make Dual systems, but their stuff is definately worth drooling over.
On the other hand, I wonder how hard it would be to design a Dual PowerPC laptop, of either Apple or IBM workstation variety, since those chips run real cool.
Lunchtime? (Score:4)
Re:Sort of what you are looking for (Score:1)
Also if i remeber correctly, the sparc laptops, called Sparcbooks, never had ultrasparc CPUs in them, only 32bit sparc CPUs, though they were fun little toys.
THe big problem also with laptop CPUs also is not the heat, its the power consumption, though the two are related.
Rackmount (Score:4)
Search on google for 'portable rackmount' or 'industrial PC' -- there are tons of places selling these things.
Alternative, perhaps not what you want (Score:2)
Now, our requirements differed from yours, as we needed lots of PCI cards in this unit. Since you don't then starting from one of those 1U servers is probably the best idea. It's not perfect though, since a 1U server will be an akward shape.
Mind you, other small form factor machines in a neater shape are more likely to be workstations (e.g. Compaq Ipaq) and so won't offer the power.
Try the people who e.g. make custom flight cases for musicians.
Why a single system? (Score:2)
If I were in charge of this, I'd get a Supermicro 6010H (about $5000 including hotswap 10K RPM SCSI drives) and a $5000 laptop (of whatever variety you prefer). And pocket^H^H^H^H^H^Hgive back the remaining $10000.
Re:Sort of what you are looking for (Score:1)
Re:Why a single system? (Score:2)
A lot of 1U servers.. (Score:3)
Obviously, you are aware that once you purchase one of these you are locked into that motherboard and processor combination. You will eventually not see much in the way of return on investment, personally if I needed high performance gear in a small footprint - I would buy a custom 1U case and put an AMD Athlon/Thunderbird in it and switch to the dual motherboards when they are available.
Once you find your perfect server, do not overlook heating and power requirements for your system. Heat is a huge problem, especially with AMD hardware. Look for the Orb fan products for use with AMD's processors, they are my favorite and increase system stability.
-Pat
Why? (Score:2)
You could always look into some of the stuff that people in the Gamer/Overclocker/Casemod Scene have done for LAN-party boxes, for ideas on making the case portable... One word of caution : Big ass heatsinks don't like rough handling when mounted...
Now Cliff done ruined it... (Score:4)
In the future, please refrain from making comments that completely answer a submission, rather, enhance the topic by adding thought provoking thoughts, such as...
"What might one do with a Beowulf cluster of such SMP laptops?"
...or inflammetory thoughts...
"Finally, laptops might have enough processing power handle Mozilla!"
...or a comment that brings other market segments into the disscussion...
"I'll bet that OS X would run lightning fast on such a laptop and how many simultaneous Napster downloaded MP3s could you play on such a laptop?"
Just don't mention realistic facts that would make such a system unfeasable! By the way, this comment is mostly just a joke. ;-)
Re:Rackmount (Score:2)
What about a rackmount with a flat-panel display? If you build the mechanical around it (has convenient screws and frame) then you could have your solution...
You might even be able to scale it up to a quad processor machine too if you really needed the power.
Notebook Server (Score:2)
Annie
Performance or size? (Score:3)
However, you haven't mentioned what your tilter is here. You can't possibily have performance and size the same, just as you can't have cost and performance the same. Larger servers will most always perform better than smaller ones, because in this case size isn't too big of a consideration. Consumer PCs can get away with their mid-tower size by sacrificing a good motherboard and power supply. Laptops take this to a whole new level, but some of the solutions are getting more and more impressive. Still though, I don't think there will ever be a time when a full size server will be the same size or slower than, something, say, the size of a laptop. True, processor feature sizes shrink, but transistor counts similarly rise, almost linearly. This is why processor sizes have largely remained the same -- even grown a little bit. This, despite a feature size jump from 1 micron down to 180 nanometers.
Ultimatly, if you're that pressed for space, you could try jerry-rigging a dual GHz system inside something the size of a 700 MHz laptop, but don't expect your hardware to like you. A GHz system is worth much if you're constantly getting BSODs and lockups...
You could always wait a few years when people are trying to cram 5 GHz systems into small enclousers, then a dual 1 GHz system will be no problem. Can anyone say DIMM-PC?
This is the perfect answer (Score:5)
I found this one [sterlingco...rsales.com] which seems pretty representative. Note that there is a picture of it with dual pentium II's. You may have to shop around for a system with a beefy enough power supply to cover the load from the system (this one comes with a 250w PS which probably isn't enough).
I wouldn't seriously consider porting arounnd a 1U system with a rack lcd & keyboard. Those things are pretty damn unweildy even in the server room. These lunch boxes should move around pretty well.
Re:Why a single system? (Score:2)
Dell's PowerEdge 1550, which we just received two "seed" servers. Dell was nice enough to send these servers to me for free to keep forever in order to show us how they are better than Sun Netra boxen. They also have 3 U160 hot swap bays as compared to Supermicro 6010 series two.
Not to mention that the dual 850 MHz, 512MB RAM, Dual 18GB Cheetah U160 (Mirrored with RAID Card 64/MB), 1U, 2-way interleaved memory (fast), with ATI AGP and video/mouse/keyboard in front and back with a serial console (nice) would be about $4000-$4500 shipped.
IMHO, small SMP boxen have arrived.
As far as insane laptops go, Sun tried with uber-laptops years ago and for the most part failed. I wish I could get my hands on one of those PowerPC IBM Thinkpads (604e). That line of thinking would produce the kind of power you want in a laptop without the vile constraints of an Apple OS.
Thanks everyone (Score:1)
Do-it-yourself (Score:4)
If you get to Hardocp.com [hardocp.com] they should have a few links to case-modding pages and other relavant info.
Anyway, as a guy who appreciates even case-hacking, I hope you go with something cool. There's nothing quite like having a unique-looking box to show off.