Everyone Needs a Personal Server

An anonymous reader writes "Intel Labs is prototyping a potentially revolutionary new 'personal server'. The tiny device -- smaller than a PDA -- comprises a hard disk, BlueTooth, a Web-DAV enabled HTTP daemon, and other technologies enabling the user to access and modify their files from any enabled PC within their "Personal Area Network." In theory, this would allow the worker to access their own data -- essentially to have their own PC -- at any suitable workstation as long as the personal server were nearby. This article at LinuxDevices.com provides background on the personal server concept, explains how the device will enable a truly mobile experience, discusses the basic technologies involved, and provides an architectural block diagram of the prototype, which is based on an XScale Processor running at 400MHz running an embedded Linux OS."

Comments

Security

[staili]

Sounds interesting, but how secure that kind of device can be?

Re:Security

[Pros_n_Cons]

but how secure that kind of device can be?

In my life time I have lost 12 pairs of glasses.2 wallets and 5 remote controls, Losing a web server is going to 0wn

Re:Security

[slittle]

I'd be more concerned with the security of the host I'm using, rather than the fact that the unit is wireless. If the host terminal isn't mine, it can easily be trojaned/sniffed by h4x0rz, employers, The Man, etc.

If I were using this to interface with public machines (like at a library) I'd want the ability to re-image it with a known clean copy of the OS after every use. Removable media to keep my data out of public eyes wouldn't hurt either.

Instant beowulf on the subway?

[sandgroper]

Brings a whole new meaning to mobile computing ;-)

I misread the title

[gowen]

I thought all developers required a personal Saviour. My first thought was

"That's strangely religious for /."

My second was

AHA! A gap in the market for "What would Linus do?" bumper stickers -- special Segway version available

boot failure

[turkeyphant]

Smaller than PDA-class devices and without traditional input/output (I/O) capabilities such as a keyboard or display

Even though it's not running Windows, surely some sort of display would be semi-necessary? I'd hate being stuck with a useless paperweight after getting haxored or whatever...

Re:boot failure

[zakezuke]

Even though it's not running Windows, surely some sort of display would be semi-necessary? I'd hate being stuck with a useless paperweight after getting haxored or whatever...

Not really... routers do quite well with aux ports and or web management, true *nix boxes do perfectly well with remote access / console ports. Dedicated devices often don't need displays. Though if you zap the roms on any device, it's going to be a paperwight unless you can get replacements.

where's the belt

[moodz]

what you want me to lug my phone, pda, mp3 player, digital camera and now a server as well.
Robin hand me my utility belt and a bandolier of batteries.

curious about Apple's move

[dJOEK]

an iPod is already 2/3s of that
add wireless and http and presto!

Re:curious about Apple's move

[artemis67]

Actually, I think that not having wireless on the iPod is an advantage over this Intel server.

If I put all of my personal files on a wireless hard drive I carried around with me, I would always be worried about people around me trying to hack in. Can you imagine going into the mall a few years from now, when everyone is carrying one of these? It would be a hacker's dream to wander the mall, seeing what info he can pick up!

Or, can you imagine a worm in that same mall, jumping from person to person as they pass each other?

No thanks, just give me the security of the wire. I might support wireless if there was a hard switch on the unit that physically disconnected the wireless hardware, making it impossible to be turned on via software.

Already have part of it / Need something different

[zwoelfk]

I travel a /lot/ -- and I have a need to have my data accessable from anywhere in the world whenever I want it. I have servers in 3 countries connected together for most things, but for very large files (or sets of files) this is really impractical and can get very expensive. So I carry two 120GB USB drives with me wherever I go. These drives are pretty bulky, but they do allow me to do what this "personal server" is promoting - access my data from any workstation.

I don't really need a webserver with me, since that is better placed on a server that I don't unplug. This feature is pretty useless for me. Nor is bluetooth really practical to me, since USB is much wider supported than bluetooth on the machines I might sit at.

What I really need is are smaller portable harddrives with bigger capacities (200GB to start would be nice) that are network-aware. Just plug in an ethernet cable and mount it.

Different implementations

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun: Introducting Cobalt Qube (not very consumer friendly, but it gets the job done; discontinued)

Linux/BSD: We had this for years, but it takes a rocket scientist to figure out how to secure a small server and maintain it; not consumer friendly but effective)

Microsoft: Introducing .NET (access your files anywhere, anytime. One catch - your files are not your property)

Intel: Lets build a box for the regular Joe so he can access their files anytime, from anywhere, if he has an always-on connection.

Linux community: Lets hack together a working alternative that works out of the box and runs of dirt cheap hardware and even grandma can use it. Just like we did with MythTV and other lesser known PVRs

Apple: Introducing iPersonalServe

SCO: It was our idea all along!

Easier

[clinko]

I have a great idea. You can transport your files from one computer to another. i think i'll call it... WAIT! It's been done! it's called A fucking disk!

if you want to be tech wiz, you could even buy a USB memory card. WOOO!

I hate myself for saying this

[SmallFurryCreature]

but what the hell is the point?

Sure the idea has merits. If they ever can the installed base of the ground. Say that every PC in world is enabled in this way. Then yes I could take this light device with me and while waiting at the airport work at a supplied terminal. While in the aircraft use the PC in the seat to work. Then while at the client use their PC's to hold my presentation.

Slight snag. This is not likely to happen. Most companies don't even like their own employees to attach hardware to the network let alone complete strangers. Let alone a black box device. We all heard the horror storie about people installing modded consoles in the walls to comprimise security at big offices. This make it even easier.

It sounds to me like kermit. To those of you who do not know what kermit is it was a mobile phone that only worked in hotsports. So it worked for a few years while everyone used payphones or carphones until cellphones became cheap. Just as now everyone will use something like a USB pendrive/iPod style/external HD device or pda/laptop. The first are cheap and light and will usually work. The second are expensive heavy but at least can work on their own.

Perhaps this will work for big companies in highly specialized situations. I just can't think of any where existing tech like the ones I mentioned wouldn't do just as well.

Can anyone else perhaps point out what I missed?

Network Harddrive

[zwoelfk]

What I really need is are smaller portable harddrives with bigger capacities (200GB to start would be nice) that are network-aware. Just plug in an ethernet cable and mount it.

The Snap Appliance Server 1100 is pretty close. It's a little large, but not too bad. It's something that's much more useful to me than this "personal server". But the cost is outrageous. About 800USD for a 120GB networked drive? Considering I can get a 160GB USB drive in Japan for under 200USD now, the extra 600USD does not justify the cost of adding ethernet.

I guess I'll just have to wait, someone's bound to come out with something. For now I'm just thinking of picking up one of those brick-PCs and mounting my drives to that (especially as I need more) and just connecting that to the network wherever I am.

I like that idea, but what about this...

[CausticWindow]

Looks like a pen. Writes like a pen.

But it's not a real pen. It contains 512 MB (or so) of flash, which is shared via bluetooth. A 10cm high retractable gain antenna is hidden within the length of the pen itself, and powered by a single AAA battery. Walk by an enabled PC, optionally type in a password, and all your documents, your keyring, etc. are available. Think of the security holes. Finally, as an added bonus, when you write on paper (or anything for that matter, toilet paper springs to mind), you can choose to record your scribbles on the flash drive. Tiny gyroscopic sensors determine the motion of the pen across the page, and a pressure sensor determines whether the pen is against a writing surface. Each time you expose the ball point head it creates a new file, and when you retract it, it closes it. You can tell which file is which by the timestamps.

THAT would kick butt. And as embedded logic gets more powerful, you could have a personal web/email/aim server running in there too. A wireless iPod sounds nifty, but where's the innovation people? Where is Microsoft?

What's wrong with this picture?

[CausticWindow]

Let me get this straight. I'm supposed to carry around this little box with all my data on it so that when I get somewhere that has a keyboard and screen and knows how to talk to this box, I can log in and access my data. What's wrong with this picture? Why do I need to carry around this box? Why do I want to carry around data? That's what the Internet is for.

Remember Java-enabled jewelry with onboard crypto? The RSA "fob" ID device? Dallas Semiconductor buttons? Same functional capabilities, less to carry. All you really need is an ID device.

Ubiquitous computing looks more like "hurry up and find something that wastes compute power before we have to have another layoff". They need some better ideas over there.

Re:What's wrong with this picture?

[gordyf]

I think this would be much more useful when you're away from an internet connection.

Photographers with digital cameras out on photo shoots can have a 20, 40, whatever gb drive on their belt and a camera that uploads their images.

Your MP3 player is the headphones and accesses 20gb of mp3s.

All of a sudden your PDA has 40gb of storage instead of a tiny compactflash card.

You could store a hell of a lot of contacts for your cell phone. :)

Integrate the server with a cell phone and now your camera can upload images to your ftp site, your PDA can surf the net via bluetooth, your MP3 player gets Shoutcast streams...

It's like a NAS for your body.

Instead of laptop.

[spectrokid]

I carry a laptop from home to work. I have a port replicator in both places and kbd, lcd,.. is basically dead weight. If you could make a PC the size of a laptop with a desktop processor (cheaper) but no screen, kbd, mouse then I would definitely be in for this. You would have to guarantee backward compatibility on the docking station so don't need to buy new ones every time I upgrade. You would have to do carefull weight/price/lifetime calculations for deciding what goes in the brick and what in the docking station (power supply, cdrom?). This would also work in these "floating" offices where every employee does not have a fixed desk assigned (very popular in Brussels right now, how about your place?). What they describe here just seems like another expensive add-on. I would look for sth which replaces my current hardware store.

Re:Instead of laptop.

[LetterJ]

Have you looked at the Cappuccino PC's? They don't all have "desktop" processors, but are closer to what you're looking for than most laptops.

http://www.cappuccinopc.com/espressopc.asp

That's it?

[CausticWindow]

Gotta admit being a little disappointed by this.

For those of you who didn't RTFA: This is essentially a little hard drive which rides around in your backpack (note: I don't carry a backpack all the time; do you?) and can connect, wirelessly, to any machine you access which recognizes wireless devices. Basically, as far as I can tell, this has the same net effect as having a home directory on an NFS server someplace and using it to save your settings as you move from machine to machine.

Again: Bo-ring.

When I saw "personal server, no IO", I was hoping this would be a manifestation of the keystone portion of my idea for a personal wireless network Your devices would all notice one another, and the width of functionality of any given device would be dependant on what you were carrying. If you we out taking pictures with your digicam and were carrying a server, the images would be transfered to the (presumably very expansive) drive in the server. If you had your cell phone, the images would be sent off to your home computer, as well.

Repeat en masse. PDAs display and do I/O, headphones play music and the real work is taken care of automagically behind the scenes in some secure fashion. You'd effectively allow the elimination of multi-use devices which don't do any job very well by allowing your devices to play their strong points, and you could customize your loadout just in what you grab in the morning when you're loading your pockets.

Anyhow, this ain't it, and that's disappointing -- somebody must have hit my verbosity flag today, and I'm sincerely sorry for the pain that I've caused you all...

Not revolutionary, see Sony's Portable File Server

[CoachOta]

Intel's research seems to be more of an evolutionary refinement than a new revolution in computing.

Sony's had a wireless file server PGX1 out in Japan for several months now. It's not really pocket size but doesn't take much space or add much weight in a bag at only 390g. It stores 20GB and supports CIFS, NFS and FTP connections over 802.11b. It's also dockable with a wired ethernet connection when direct access is desired. Configuration is via LCD display or web browser.

See the FSV-PGX1 at Sony's Portable File Server page for details (in Japanese of course).