Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Small Form SMP Boxen and Laptops - Where Are They?

Posted by Cliff on from the as-the-technology-gets-smaller-and-smaller dept.

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?

2 of 25 comments (clear)

  1. Sort of what you are looking for by The+Iconoclast · · Score: 5

    Tadpole 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.

    --
    Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
  2. This is the perfect answer by sleeper0 · · Score: 5
    Do a search on lunch box ATX and take a look at the results. These are "lunch box" sized PC's that are transportable but take normal components including full sized cd's drives, motherboards, cards, etc. They used to be popular back before laptops were everywhere, but they've kept them up to date for certain applications like yours.

    I found this one 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.