1/4 Width Rack-mount Linux Servers

An Anonymous Coward writes: "It seems an unheard of company, inlogica, are selling a 1/4 with rack mount server that comes complete with Slackware Linux(woot) in the UK as we speak. They appear to be quite a good spec too, PIII-600mhz 128mb RAM, 17GB HD.. Now if only i could afford one..." They're cute, but I wonder about power requirements, I wouldn't think most racks would be designed to support this many systems.

Comments

So..

[mindstrm]

it's three times the price it should be.
Automatic failsafe? Oh whee, a watchdog card. Those are cheap.

This is a gimmick.. and unless you really really need that rackspace at a huge premium... I'd say you are wasting your money on these.

Re:1/4U doesn't mean 1/4 cheaper for a server spac

[mpe]

I mean lets see - 180 servers in a rack. 40 Amps @ 120V means you'd have .222 Amps per server, That's about 26 Watts! (DOn't bother replying abotu RMS - this is just an estimate)

There is a slight mistake here is that you are assuming a US power supply for a product sold in the UK. A more sensible supply would be something like 32 Amp 3 phase 230V which gives you 120 Watt per server.

oh not again...

[jaredcat]

How many times has this happened in the past 6 months? A marketing rep from some unknown company posts their new product line to SlashDot in hopes of getting some undeserved PR... and it gets approved as newsworthy.

Anyone remember that DVD player that had built in Sega games?

Problems waiting to happen

[sacremon]

I work in a web hosting data center of a backbone provider. I could see some company wanting to be cheap on real estate and rent a half cabinet (the smallest we have) and putting a bunch of these in there.

However, I have to agree with what others have already commented about power and heat - these will draw a lot. We have a customer who tried to fill a cabinet with the 1U IBM servers (37 of them) and we finally convinced them that it was going to work, despite what IBM claims. The things would cook themselves. Turns out the fine print on IBM's claim was that it would work if you used an open rack - not practical in a hosting environment with other companies, even if you have a cage. These things will be even worse.

Oh, as far as the cost is concerned, sure you can home build something cheaper - that's not where the cost comes in. The cost comes in the support, which is much more expensive with servers than home machines, as they often are 'replace within 24 hours' at a minimum. We've got contracts with Sun that are 'replace within 2 hours, 24x7' that annually cost something like 40% of the cost of the servers.

1/4U doesn't mean 1/4 cheaper for a server space.

[baptiste]

I agree about the power issue. That and heat. Install these babies in a closed cabinet and make sure you've got a jet engine pulling air form teh subfloor. I managed a data center for a large R&D lab - about 600 servers, mostly HP's. Our standard cabinet had TWO 20 Amp feeds, one on each side. Stack a bunch of HP C Class workstations as a server farm and it'll dry your hair in 2 minutes with all teh heat coming out. And they loaded those two circuits too.

I mean lets see - 180 servers in a rack. 40 Amps @ 120V means you'd have .222 Amps per server, That's about 26 Watts! (DOn't bother replying abotu RMS - this is just an estimate) I'd LOVE to find a Pent_III 600 that could run on So I'd LOVE to know how much power they pack into a rack full of these things. Without power specs on teh site - well you can't tell. They also don't include BTU load. Any data center manager needs those specs to know the added load on the environemnt.

Remember, its not JUST rack space. The reasons a server costs so much in real estate are:

• Rack space (your average well built rack runs about a grand or two)
• Network Port (may or may not include bandwidth costs)
• Load on electrical PDUs
• Load on cooling systems

SO just because you can squeeze them into such a small space doesn't mean they are worth teh extra money. Unless they draw 1/4 less power and generate 1/4 less heat, the benefit is reduced.

But that said - they are pretty cool. But my other fear is they probably use more custom or on board parts than off the shelf (memory, NIC, etc) meaning fixing one probably means replaceing it, not just a board inside. I know 1U racks have lots on board too... But at least the memory isa replaceable. With this - its had to tell (no internal shots that I could find)