Low Powered Mini-Server for the Masses

ServerSam writes "Sudhian has a review up on EmergeCore's "IT in a Box" IT100. Designed for small business use, it comes equipped with a Transmeta Crusoe 533MHz, 128MB RAM, 20GB IBM TravelStar, 802.11b Access Point, and boots from a 32MB Flash card. The IT100 is powered by a 60 watt external PSU and is smaller than a PS2."

Comments

Re:hmm

[LeoDV]

Insightful? How so?

I so happen to have one of "those god awful 'mini' 'cube' PCs" and it's fantastic, thank you very much. I used to be a vocal opponent of those things because they were kludgy and underperformant, but I got myself one of them "mailboxes" some time ago and it's been great. I had the mother of all great big cases, the Antec 1080, which I loved (and still do, for its purpose it's the best case out there), but I realised that for normal PC operation, something that weighs 35 kilos and has eight fans is overkill.

When it was time to upgrade, I was simply going to get the same only smaller, but a friend sold me into getting one of "those god awful 'mini' 'cube' PCs" and I must say, it's one of the best computing choices I've made.

With a combo drive it can do everything a regular PC can, without significantly more noise/heat, while being smaller, lighter, and looking damn cool in black. I already upgraded the system twice with no worries, and as the time draws near to update the system again, I'm thinking about going 64-bit, but whatever I do you can bet it's going to come in a tiny black box.

I Don't know about this...

[cerebralsugar]

Think about it:

1.) It includes 802.llb. How strange. Does anybody really feel a wireless server is a good thing? With 5 or 6 clients on an 802.llb network, things other than simple, tiny file transfers are going to start to slow down alot.

2.) Crusoe Processor - I mean, why not a celeron? Heat issues? Power consumption? Why use a processor intended for mobile applications in a server??

3.) The price - this thing should not break a grand. I work at a fairly major (Fortune 1000) computer reseller, and If I had a small office customer call me looking for an inexpensive server, I could sell them an IBM X series 205 for $769. It has a P4 2.4 GHZ and 256 megs of RAM. Its an honest to god server class machine.

Unless you have 8 guys with notebooks that travel and need a traveling server, what is the point of this? And for the price, if you did have those 8 guys, you could jsut have a 9th notebook, and have better specs, AND be battery powered.