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Having said that, if you used the Mocha with some sort of NAS device like a NetApp then you might have something. IMO, the RLX stuff is still a better solution, though. At least with those you can mirror the boot drive.

Of course, I'm just pulling all this outta the air, so take as many grains of salt as needed.

-B

Actually they do, its just not under their press releases.. its under thier product page.

It all comes down to "power consumption, size, reliability and ease of administration", apparently.

And the marketing people at RLX Technologies should be shot for not having a press release up for this, as it's all based on their product...

forget this thing, buy something from RLX Technologies and get similar CPU power while saving a -bundle- on power and cooling costs!

This thread is about laptops specifically, but you made a pretty large generalization, Timothy, and I just wanted to clarify it a little bit.

Requisite disclaimer: I obviously work for RLX.

I have some friends and former colleagues who went to work for RLX Technologies in The Woodlands, Texas (north of Houston).

RLX sells rack-mounted server products utilizing the Transmeta Cruesoe chip. Apparently the demand hasn't been that great for their product, even though everything I've seen so far looks pretty impressive. I know two people who work there who have been laid off in the past month.

< kw> And here's the link straight from the horse's mouth &lt/kw&gt

(with kh being karma whore, of course!)

Please don't write us off just yet. We have over two years worth of cash in the bank, and we've recently announced our second product. The Crusoe chip has been very popular in Japan, including holding the #1 Notebook Top Seller spot for a while.

Is it easy to go up against Intel? Of course not. This is not an overnight, just-add-water kind of deal. We're trying to change the way people perceive computing. NEC has taken our chip and combined it with a low-power screen for further power savings. RLX is using the Crusoe chip to build ultra-dense server racks. Granted, there's some overcapacity in this area at the moment, but that could turn around.

Yes, our stock price has been beaten down. Yes, Intel is a formidable competitor. Yes, we've had a management shake-up. I don't think it's nearly as bad as the CNET article makes it sound. I'm not looking for a new job, and I'm staying fully vested with the ESPP. Let's wait and see what happens. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Actually look at the server blade by RLX, they use the Crusoe chip and stuff something like 30 servers into the same space as a 5U

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Q5: Can you offer more detail about the RLX System 324 specifications?

A5: Each ServerBlade is an independent server, which contains a 633MHz Transmeta Crusoe processor with 512KB L2 cache. We chose this chip because it requires significantly less power than today's conventional processors. Each RLX System 324 ServerBlade features memory that supports either a 128 MB, 256 MB or 512 MB module running at 133 MHz. The ServerBlade can accommodate up to two disk drives with 10GB or 30GB capacities available to choose from. Each ServerBlade also has three embedded 10/100 Fast Ethernet NICs on each server for built-in networking and network control. The major difference between the ServerBlade and other servers commonly in use is that the ServerBlade is the first server blade design with a complete server software solution pre-installed on the ServerBlade itself. The RLX System 324 eliminates video, CD-ROM and floppy drives, providing fewer points of failure.

Aside from the nick and the sig, calling 133MB/s 'measly' is absurd. Sure, compared to servers that cost an order of magnitude higher than these do, it is a little slow. But comparted to 100 Mb Ethernet, it is pretty fast. For specific applications it is definately useable.

And RF problems? How about24 CPUs in a 3u package, using a similar concept?

But for a troll, its nicely done. Several detailed replies, even I couldn't resist!

Just to say it out loud...I work there, so it's a blatant self-promotion, I guess. But it is a bad ass little product that packs a punch.

Check out www.rlxtechnologies.com. They have had the same technology available for almost a year now. The 'blade plane' for reducing the number of cables needed... etc... etc... And you can get three blades in a 3U case for $5k.

Check out RLX to read about a company that is going whole hog into the Transmeta-based server market. They are down here in Houston and appear to have a lot of traction. I don't know how their sales are going though.

Crash

I would be shocked if Darwin doesn't run on this machine. Folks have been working hard to decouple Darwin and the Apple hardware. The form factor for the enclosure is the real story. The only other real player there is RLX, with their transmeta-based 24-blade 3U systems. While the RLX systems are denser, the Crusoe processors aren't as well-suited to high-power computations as the G4.

From what I've read, they had a disk controller failure, and the secondary (ie. backup) controller also had some kind of fault which lead them "further down the disaster recovery plan." Which means now they go to tape backups, probably.

If they don't have tape backups, then they should be flayed, soaked in rubbing alcohol, and dumped in a big pile of dung.

Sounds to me like they didn't really have a good architecture in the first place. If they were relying on a single machine, and assuming that internal redundancy would cut it, they were very short sighted. Were I tasked with such a systems architecture, there would be a completely redundant layer of complete systems which would periodically (ie. every five hours or so) get complete copies of all the live data.

Were such a catastrophe to occur, dump the production systems, and go to your offline backups.

Downsides of such a plan: a) double the cost, and b) depending on the size of your data set, doing all that copying could prove problematic. Then again, I'd do in with a farm of these running linux, with a gigantic pair of hot-swap Oracle databases running on the backend.

But that's just me. :)

-db

PS. usual disclaimer applies...I'm hocking my own company's product in that link above, but I don't care. It's cool. I like it, and I use it!! And, I'm not in sales...so there! ;)

Visit www.rlxtechnologies.com. They have a density of 8 computers per 1U of space(it's actually 24/3U). On each system, you get a transmeta cpu/633mhz. 128m - 512m. 2 drives(can be shipped with 10 or 30g). 3 nics(altho, one nic on each system is connected internally).

The entire chassis of 24 blades runs off a single 450W power supply. However, there is a second power supply, for redundancy. In testing, we have even turned off the fans, with no harm done. The cpu heatsinks are quite touchable.

Have a look at the RLX System 324. It's basically a 3U chassis holding 24 independent servers. The chassis provides power (so you only need 14 power cables to power all the machines) and network (3 networks, public, private and management). The power requirements are quite low too (they're based on Crusoe).

Funnily enough, there's a story on The Register about just such a beast, with up to 336 Crusoes, which is `practically fanless' (i.e., it has fewer fans). It's designed as a web server, and as such is rackmounted (press release at RLX's site).