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

Feel the energy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Transmeta Crusoe 533MHz, 128MB RAM, 20GB IBM TravelStar, 802.11b Access Point, and boots from a 32MB Flash card."

I think my Cisco router has more behind it...

Re:Feel the energy

[Cpt_Kirks]

Bah.

Wait until the nano-itx boards come out. I have a *TINY* pc planned. 1Ghz CPU, DVD and TV tuner included.

Is that a PC in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?

Slashdotted Already?

[cerebralsugar]

I guess that rules out using it as a web server...

Re:Slashdotted Already?

[L0C0loco]

There is some info and a less than glowing review Here.

Enjoy

Re:Slashdotted Already?

[Hektor_Troy]

Less than glowing?

hrmm ...

Overall recommendation: Recommended

Editors' rating: 7.6 out of 10 (Good)

Setup and ease of use: 8 out of 10

Features and security: 8 out of 10

Performance: 7 out of 10

Service and support: 7 out of 10

Okay, I guess I'm stupid. 5 out of 10 would be average, more than that would be positive, and an average of 7.6 puts it in the top 25%.

When did anything less than 9 out of 10 become crappy?

Re:Slashdotted Already?

[Atario]

When did anything less than 9 out of 10 become crappy?

The first time an eBay-er complained about a positive feedback not containing the string "A+++++++++!!!!!!!".

Slashdotted ALREADY

[Zog The Undeniable]

Must be using one of those portable server thingies.

Other than size...

[BJZQ8]

Other than size, I think one of those $199 Walmart Microtel machines would be a better deal...they now have 1300MHz Durons in them. They are a bit skimpy on memory (come with 128MB), but you can buy 512MB of the SDR stuff they use for $50 these days. I have a bunch of them, and they've been flawless!

I think...

[metamatic]

...they're using it to run their web site.

Er...

[FrostedWheat]

Yes, you can use Linux and other "free" operating systems, but the concept of Linux, and it's "unaccountability" scares most small business owners

Yes ... because as we all know Microsoft or Apple are completly "accountable" for any errors or damage there OS causes...

Re:Er...

[kinnell]

Yes ... because as we all know Microsoft or Apple are completly "accountable" for any errors or damage there OS causes...

What matters is that most people who make business decisions to use commercial software believe that the vendor is liable, and continue to believe it despite any evidence to the contrary, such as "we do not guarantee that this software will do what it is designed to do".

Re:Er...

[tabdelgawad]

The two parent posts reflect conventional wisdom here in slashdot. Unfortunately, they miss the point, which is that even if there is no strict 'legal' liability (and there are reasons to think even this may not be true), there's always some 'effective' liability imposed by business reality.

For example, suppose TurboTax makes a certain error in filing that affects a certain percentage of its customers, who are then punished with fees/audits by the IRS. If the case is publicized and the error is strictly TurboTax's, could TurboTax really afford to say that they're not liable because of their EULA? What would that do to their sales the following year? And what would consumer recourse be if they used a non-commercial tax package instead of TurboTax? Who would they hit up for their fees and damages?

Additionally, there's no guarantee that all EULAs would stand a legal test in a liability case. I believe that was what UCITA was all about, strengthening EULAs to limit software liability. If EULAs were always legally biniding, UCITA would probably be unnecessary.

I don't claim that commercial software vendors will always be liable, but there are formal and informal ways of accountability available with commercial vendors. It's not fair to claim that businesses are being completely irrational in continuing to believe this.

Cobalt RaQ and Cobalt Qube?

[ThogScully]

Anyone recognize the niche as that of Cobalt, before Sun took them over? Did those do well enough that this can be popular?

Unfortunately, as an operator of a Cobalt RaQ for many years, I found it to be very limiting once we did figure out how to really use it and how little the custom interfaces allowed, but it was great for people who just wouldn't learn that stuff.

I hope no one thinks these are patch-proof though,. Our Cobalt needed patches and even with them had trouble avoiding a few compromises since patches were so delayed. Now it runs Debian and I couldn't be happier with the little box.
-N

Re:Cobalt RaQ and Cobalt Qube?

[danamania]

It's not a bad small out of the way server for the old learning experience. The whole idea of starting admins-in-training on the most minimal hardware instead of having them throw 3GHz PIVs at serving a home site that gets 5 visitors a day just begs for inefficiency down the line.

I started my site on a 33MHz Quadra. It'd still be using that if I didn't rely on quite a bit of PHP in places. There was no reason to jump up too far, so a PPC601 was the next machine up.

What the whole experience has taught me is how to keep things running efficiently by knowing the system well, and remembering never to do stupid things, like post the URL on slashdot. :)

Re:Cobalt RaQ and Cobalt Qube?

[ThogScully]

and remembering never to do stupid things, like post the URL on slashdot. :)

Looks to me like your URL is posted to slashdot every time you post a message. http://www.danamania.com appears under your username.

But don't worry - your secret's safe with me ;-)

Re:Cobalt RaQ and Cobalt Qube?

[danamania]

Thanks!

I shall remember to mention in each message not to click on the above link. That could have done some real damage! ;)

(PS. Don't click on the link)

Smaller than a PS/2?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how PS2 doesn't mean what it used to.

Re:Smaller than a PS/2?

[pete-classic]

I was just going to ask how many MCA slots it has. Thanks for taking the wind out of my sails.

-Peter

Re:Smaller than a PS/2?

[ptomblin]

I used to have a PS/2 model 80 under my desk at work. IBM thoughfully put a large handle on the top so that when the urge to throw it through the window got too great, you could get a good grip on it.

Damn thing probably weighed 40 pounds.

Re:Smaller than a PS/2?

[sharkey]

Suppose you go into a store, and ask for a mouse. The guy behind the counter says "USB?", and that's not what you want. What is your response?

Well, the type of person that would walk past the shelves loaded with mice to ask for a mouse would most likely say, "No, I want a mouse!"

"The IT100 did it all at a cost of $1,395"

[no_such_user]

$1395?! Why not just buy a laptop? Or two? It would be (much!) faster, similarly power efficient with an external power supply, could likely boot from CF, could act as an AP, would even have an integrated diplay for debugging... and MUCH more. C'mon folks -- I was hoping something like this would go for $400, not $1400!

Re:"The IT100 did it all at a cost of $1,395"

[itsnotthenetwork]

I think this is supposed to be for people who are too ignorant or too lazy to set up their own servers. If you want to be lazy it is going to cost you .

Re:"The IT100 did it all at a cost of $1,395"

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Yep, but there is an advantage:
Think this is going for a server, the real meaning of server is 24*7; so heat is your enemy here ... there is no notebook out there that can manage to have 7 months of uptime with a high cpu usage without burning out or hanging all the time ... Crusoe is a beatifull cold processor. But i agree with you ... this kind of device is for marketroids that wants some big company behind their hard/soft, because they think that is a kind of warranty of profit (like all those assholes using redhat) ... If you have the knowledge *and* the balls to tell the manager that you are going to put home-made hardware in their raqs; it will work as well as any of this closed boxes.

Re:"The IT100 did it all at a cost of $1,395"

[Cthefuture]

Yeah but you could certainly build a VIA mini-itx system for a hell of a lot less and with a faster processor.

Anyone else notice that Newegg seems to have stopped carrying mini-itx boards? Why is that?

Re:"The IT100 did it all at a cost of $1,395"

[GrenDel Fuego]

I think the main problem here is the slashdot headline, not the product itself.

At $1,395 this is hardly a "mini-server for the masses". To me that implies personal use. This is the mini-server for small businesses.

Re:"The IT100 did it all at a cost of $1,395"

[cgreuter]

$1395?! Why not just buy a laptop?

Consider the cost of the time spent configuring the laptop or PC to work as an office server and add that to the cost. Keep in mind that most people aren't Unix experts and even the ones that are will likely have to spend several hours reading HOWTOs and man pages before they can get everything working. The advantage of one of these devices is that you plug it in, turn it on and it just works. That means, you can go back to doing profitable work sooner.

I have no doubt that if you really need an office server, $1395 is not to high a price to pay if you don't have to sink any time into it.

That being said though, it looks to me like NetWinder will do the same job at less than half the price.

Re:"The IT100 did it all at a cost of $1,395"

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice timing. I was on hold with Newegg to place an order when I read your post so I asked them. The order person transfered me to a manager. She said it was because of the huge number of returns. She said returns on RAM, motherboards, and processors was killing them, but returns on the few ITX boards they sold would have killed them if they had kept it up. She said most of the ITX boards they sold came back since the Via boards are so horrible at compatibility. She said the usual comments were "can't get X Windows to run," "can't get the network adapter to work," "can't get the sound card to work," and so on. Every single one of those pieces are proprietary on the Via ITX boards.

I've been a Linux user for over 10 years, and I've used X Windows on PC's for 9 years, but it still took me two entire days to get X Windows to work on the Via garbage. You don't even get the source to their X Win driver so you have to upgrade or downgrade to the version of X Win that they demand you to. For us, we have a company standard to use Debian, so we can't use Via boards. Where my wife works, they use a newer version of X Win for their ERP software than Via allows you to, so they can't use them. Via is shooting themselves in the foot and screwing customers and dealers in the process with their proprietary garbage. The Newegg manager's statement was the reason I expected.

Re:"The IT100 did it all at a cost of $1,395"

[paxmark1]

I was in RMA hell for 12 weeks with a via-itx. I would go back to it, but bottom feeding ECS said board had been problems and they gave me a P-4 barebones with my old hard drive back. VIA - itx still have a few kinks to work out on the itx line and their linux support and drivers still needs help - just look on the via-arena. A different video than a C-media or whatever problematic video chip they attach to the board that would work seamlessly with XFree86 would be nice and why bundle a winmodem with a distro empty machine. The USB driver was very rocky from the start, finally installing the driver via Win98 (I dual boot, I have people from all over the planet using my machine here at a L'Arche house) finally fixed that, etc. etc. little niggling things. Oh not to mention the malloc stuff in compiles, and the pickiness of distros to correctly identify the VIA cyrix chip. So it is $1395 USD. If it works out of the box and functions 24/7, well, hopefully the price will go down. The ITX is not just a walk down the park. It is sweet, but a pain to get linux (or FreeBSD for that manner, I had problems withthat also) just exactly the way you want it and some of the companies distributing it do not have stellar track records for service. Shalom, Mark

mini-itx

[hatrisc]

until i realized i didn't have the money, i was going to build a mini-itx system to serve nfs, do NAT, pppoe, serve ssh into my local network, and some other things. i had everything planned out, just no money.. :(

Re:mini-itx

[odyrithm]

you know, you CAN just run that lot on the box your using now.. just an idea.. you crazy wierdo.

Ripping off

[MikeyG79]

$1400.. I'll build my own mini tower or go out and buy something much more powerful... like a 2.2GHz w/ 1gig

The things people get ripped off with these days.

Re:Ripping off

[wwest4]

you don't need a 2+ GHz P4 to run common net svcs. you need a cold-running reliable box, preferably with no fans or drive spindles to wear out.

for small businesses, appliances make a lot of sense. they just want stuff to work and be simple to understand from a high level - they don't want a custom hack job (as fun as that may be).

these boxes (along with the slew of thin client appliances out there) often run open-source software, and not all are as expensive as this baby. i, for one, welcome our black box toaster overlords - at least at the mom&pop level.

Re:Already slashdotted...

[metlin]

Details are available on their forum.

Link here to the Sudhian Forum.

If the current state of their server is any indication of this thing's performance, its sad :)

I don't trust them either...

[twoslice]

... i dont trust reviewers who have those god awful 'mini' 'cube' PCs as their workstation!

I believe that they are all members of the Borg collective just waiting to have critical mass to assimilate us all...

If you just put on a tinfoil hat, you too will see the real conspiracy. The Borgs have brain altering waves to make you trust them...

No Fault Tolerance? No Server

[Slider451]

Without at least RAID 1 (mirrored drives) I never consider a hardware device a server. A PC running backend applications with no redundancy is a bad idea in a busy business.

Re:No Fault Tolerance? No Server

[wwest4]

for a small business, fault tolerance is having a spare appliance complete w/ flash image.

you wouldn't be smart to use an appliance like this for file serving applications, but for DC/AD/NIS/DNS/BOOTP/DHCP, static web content, it would be a good choice for a small business if you skip the HDD and use a bigger CF card. no moving parts, longer useful lifetime and poor-man's N+1. perfect for a no-nonsense small bus.

Re:No Fault Tolerance? No Server

[Slider451]

Good points. However:

With raid-1, you dont even have to make backups.

That's a common misconception with RAID. Redundant disks only protect you from hardware failure. You still need to make backups to recover from human failure. If Bob in accounting deletes your Quickbooks files, they're gone. I just had to restore a giant spreadsheet from tape a couple days ago, onto a RAID 5 system.

RAID won't save you from Bob.

Re:No Fault Tolerance? No Server

[JediTrainer]

RAID 1 schemes (1, 0+1, 10) are also capable of running without a performance hit when one drive fails, unlike RAID 3/4/5 systems, some implementations of which cannot run at all until rebuilt.

Not to nitpick myself, but believe it or not I've run across a Compaq Server (less than 2 years old) that couldn't boot properly while the 0+1 array was being rebuilt. Yes, the data was preserved, but having to wait a few hours to get the machine back up was agonizing.

Fortunately we had a backup server (with just the critical parts of the app), so we switched to that in the meantime, then waited patiently to get everything else up.

We're now working on eliminating the Compaqs from our critical infrastructure. They are way too failure prone, and a failure of a one-inch fan against the CPU (out of 3) meant the box would shut down and refuse to start until it's replaced. And this happened multiple times to several of our servers.

Why have 3 fans at all if you can't tolerate the failure of one of them?

Re:No Fault Tolerance? No Server

[zulux]

Redundant disks only protect you from hardware failure. You still need to make backups to recover from human failure.

RAID alos wont protect from...

Viruses/Trogens that wipe the file-system.
Bad memory sticks that cause file-system corruption.
Flaky RAID controllers that randomly screw up a stripe now and then.
A netowrk card that sends bad packets and causes the filesystem to bork.
Bugs in your uber-filesystem that cause corruption. (NTFS I'm looking at *YOU*)
Power spikes that go through tour surge protectory, into your power supply and through the 12v line that connects to the hard-drives and frys the controllers.
New useres playing with the rm command.
"What do you meand, the server doesen't have a 'Recycle Bin'?? !!? ?? "

All the these things *have* happend to me.

Re:Wish the link wasn't Slashdotted.

[metlin]

Not really. Its a Transmeta 533. Even one of those el-cheapo $199 things from Walmart or an old Celeron or P3 would give this thing a run for its money.

At $1150 (?) and odd, it really isn't worth it. You're better off building your own mail server from scratch. Cheaper and better than this.

Look at the power of emergicore!

[dimer0]

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Re:Look at the power of emergicore!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey thanks for the mirror mate.

Not just size

[Gleef]

The noise level and power usage are also key for this machine. Of course, there are other fanless machines, many of them much cheaper than this one. (Note: Not all of the machines at that site are fanless, but many are, check out the Tranquil PC and the Hush). (Also Note: Fanless doesn't equal silent, you still get drive noise and monitor whine, unless you replace those with solid state components)

Re:Not just size

[tuffy]

Where do I get a solid state monitor?

Here's a few.

Just think what a geek can do with $1100 these day

[LazloToth]

Sure, I know that not everyone can build his own box and load it with Linux. But for this money, I'm thinking you could do pretty well with a Duron, a couple of ATA 133 drives, and a cheap 1U box. If you can run a web interface such as the one described here, you probably could do alright with Webmin, too. And think how much more useful and trustworth a thing you'd have.

Ah, well - - aren't the do-it-yourselfers among us lucky?

Re:hmm

[Cthefuture]

Erm... What?!

My friend, silence is the future of computing. I really hate, I mean I - HATE - those god awful gianormous skyscraper towers that blast out 90dB of concentration breaking whirring and grinding sounds. Not to mention the heat and wasted space. Who needs 8 PCI slots, 12 drive bays, and a 600W power supply?! That's legacy garbage from the ;lt%90's man.

Smaller, faster, QUIETER. That is the future.

You sound like one of those "old timers" that likes inefficient crap just because that's all you know.

You would probably take a CRT over an LCD any day, right? (*)

* By the way, CRT's do have there uses in high speed games (Quake) but other than that they just burn your retinas.

I like the YellowDog/Terrasoft briQ more...

[ewwhite]

The briQ is a much pimper... :) And just as expensive....

http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/briQ/in tro.shtml

Small Servers?

[mr_lithic]

When did size become a massive concern for people buying servers?

I thought cooling, data transfer rates and reliability (redundant PSU's etc) were the main considerations. Processor speed and storage capacity are definitely up there as well.

But Size?

I don't understand

Re:Small Servers?

[blkmajik]

You obviously don't pay for floor space at a co-location data center.

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.

Re:Wish the link wasn't Slashdotted.

[Gleef]

Some really nifty quiet machines at nOrhTec. Their MicroServers are smaller than any cable modems I've seen.

Lots of small (but bigger than the MicroServer), low power machines at Mini-ITX

TigerDirect

[CmdrTostado]

$500 for something similar, I suppose, but didn't read the manufacturer's specs because there site is down.

They also believe

[rm007]

What matters is that most people who make business decisions to use commercial software believe that the vendor is liable

They also believe, or at least behave according to, the old chestnut "no one ever got fired for buying IBM" (substitute well known brand in any technology realted field for "IBM" to adapt this to any category). Those in large organizations don't want to take risks that will jeopardize their careers, but at least they are more likely to have IT departments to make recommendations. In small organizations, there is neither the in-house expertise nor often the willingness to spend on outside advice. While they may not know just how little they know, they calculate risk on the basis of what little they do know and they know the Apple and Mircrosoft brands.

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.

CF for boot?

[jargoone]

Looks very cool, but I don't understand the need for CF card for booting. I can understand if you used a read-only medium to boot from, but this has a hard disk. Is there something in the architecture that creates this need?

Re:128MB?

[bigdavex]

A system with only 128MB or RAM is NOT a server in today's world. Ten years ago maybe but not today.

Now there's some exageration. RAM was about $50/MB in 1993, making 128MB $6,400.

Re:hmm

[JohnSmith42]

I agree with everything you said, but the heat dissipation. If i didn't have my two computers during winter I would freeze to death. Taking my computer away is like taking vodka away from a russian in siberia!

Even lower power home server (for the tinkerer)

[Anonymous Coward]

I run a headless embedded server at my house, which uses 4 Watts of power (verified with my Kill-O-Watt meter). It has less processing power (equivalent to a Pentium 133MHz)

I purchased the device from embeddedx86.com. The model is TS-5400. You can see a picture of my finished server here and here. (It's in a boring-as-hell grey box... with a CD next to it for comparison - it's to the left of the access point)

It runs Apache (with PHP extensions), NAT masquerading, and provided me with a great introduction to embedded systems (it's architecture is almost identical to standard x86, so it's an easy starting point). Even though it's much less powerful than the transmeta powered box in the article, you can still do a lot of useful stuff with it!

at a cost of $1,395.

[frovingslosh]

at a cost of $1,395.

So I can get a tiny underpowered computer for $1395. Big deal. I can get a better computer for a lot less (even if I shell out a little extra for one of those small cube cases and M.B.) And at that price this toy is underpowered in every way, including hard drive space and memory. And a real computer will be less expensive in the long run, even after it's expected life this toy's power savings doesn't come close to justifying the price. Who can it be aimed at? The individual isn't gong to pay this and needs more anyway (or thinks he needs, if he thinks he needs a server at all), and can likely spare the space a single small format PC would take up as well as this. No large cluster of these is likely to be built (certainly not at this price), people who need lots of servers because of space will use Blade systems (and Google will continue to prove these are other low cost but amazingly functional approaches).

Re:Just think what a geek can do with $1100 these

[drinkypoo]

I don't think you understand how ridiculous this really is. People only need to save space like that when they're on a small boat, in a car, or something like that. You can get (aka, I just got) a Gigabyte nForce2 motherboard with everything but video onboard (including gigE, 1394, ATA RAID, SATA RAID, USB2) for $110. And an Athlon XP 2500+ for $100 or so. All told I paid about $240 shipped. $200 will get you a ~160GB hard drive; get two of them so you can mirror, and you're up to $650. 512MB of DDR333 is $80 or so, $730. A DVD-RW ($110) and a decent case with 400W PS ($100) bring us up to $940. Floppy drive (for emergencies), cheapie video card, and cheap keyboard and mouse will round this out to a complete server system with RAID-protected data, a backup solution for the data which absolutely positively must be protected and taken offsite (most people do not have data files larger than 4.7GB) and not just that, it has enough processor and memory to do probably anything you want to do in a small business. I stress that this is a complete solution; you could spend much less and get much less which would still be plenty for most people.

Too much work for you? Go to geeks.com and pick up some refurb'd HP desktops for $500 each, with 17" monitors, CDRW, DVD-ROM, 120-160GB disks, keyboard, mouse, fucken speakers fer chrissakes... and a ~2.2 GHz celery chip.

The fact is that the vast majority of people have space to put a full size computer for a server. It's only in very unusual environments where space matters so much that your only server must be smaller than a shoebox. Aside from such special cases, assuming anyone buys this device, it will mostly be people who don't understand computers, and think it looks really neat.

mini-itx + Transmeta chips = interesting market?

[GeorgieBoy]

I think Transmeta offering mini-itx boards with their processors could make the market for small-size devices quite interesting. I'm curious how well Crusoe/other Transmeta chips perform against the VIA parts with a similar clock frequency. . .

Since they are low power parts that require minimal cooling, it seems almost obvious to me as an opportunity to compete (from my "50,000 foot" viewpoint).

Re:My 486 gateway is only 24 watts!

[arivanov]

It is a standard PSU. Usually used in the ITX world. Actual consumptionis likely to be lower. While at it you can make the same system from standard components at LinItx.com (using Via instead of Crusoe) for a fraction of the cost.

Re:Cowards!

[frenetic3]

if you think about the target market for these devices, they're for small businesses that probably don't have a very experienced IT staff (or none at all.) everyone knows how to use a browser though and an ssl-encrypted https session is a secure way to manage. and most non-computer types freak out at CLIs and conversely love shiny graphics and buttons. gotta understand people that would buy this thing just want to see it at staples or compusa, grab it, unwrap it, and have it just _work_.

-fren

speed not required

[sir_cello]

Firstly, disregard all of the useless comments about "it's not fast enough", these come from techie speed freaks who ignore the economics in favour of the sports-car. Most businesses don't want nor need sports-cars.

I have a mini-itx at 500mhz running BSD: it handles 512K dsl + bluetooth + 802.11b+ + samba + nat + firewall + print server + http + everything else quite well - most of the time it idles at 10% CPU. Sure I could use an overblown 576ghz-latest-pentium, but it's just simply not necessary. Power consumption is also low. It's a perfect home server. Kernel build times are pretty good as well. It also hosts development environments for 4 web sites.

I could have have purchased a fast machine, but what's the point ? I have a 2ghz desktop for power-use. In fact, I now wish that I'd gone for a smaller form factor. Even the mini-itx is too big: looks like a DVD player. PC/104 or smaller form factor would be perfect.

Also, ignore the comments about "price": sure you could get a cheaper and faster commodity pc: but then you have to pay for the techie to install and configure the OS and enable everything else. What this appliance is offering is an out-of-the box solution, and you definitely pay for the added value. They're not in business to give things away :-). Most of the people hanging out in slashdot are competent (like me) to build platforms from scratch: but a vast majority of businesses don't have nor can afford nor even need to pay for that kind of approach.

It's not about not getting fired

[sartin]

no one ever got fired for buying [fill in the blank]

That may be a fine excuse for people at large, or even medium, companies buying software or hardware from [fill in the blank], it doesn't explain why small business owners use PCs. It's not about getting fired - after all they own the business - it's about keeping the business running without getting lost on side issues.

Apple just put out a story about Sullivan Street Bakery chose to switch (back) to Macs. The reason they switched is one of the owners preferred Macs, had done FileMaker work in a prior career, and they were not satisifed with the PC software they used (and the monthly maintenance fee).

My experience is that small business owners are pretty pragmatic. If the cost of the solution is low enough and the advantages high enough (the applications are there), they will pick the software and hardware platform that works best. Macs have pretty low switching cost. There are thousands of small computer consulting firms ready to pitch Windows solutions. Linux is still hard for non-techies. It's not common to find places to purchase a machine preconfigured with Linux and some reasonable apps; Macs and PCs often come with almost everything they need (perhaps requiring a couple of easy to install applications).

I work with a small non-profit, which is finally converting to Linux this year. First barrier was a Windows server with hosting service had been donated. That barrier went down when the donation of hosting stopped and the expensive monthly fee kicked in. Second barrier was a boatload of ASP pages that had been donated by a local Windows consulting fir, That barrier went down when the lack of licenses for the tools made it impossible to keep the updates going; we switched to JSP running on Windows. The final barrier came down when we found a donor to host the 30-odd web sites that we were hosting for clients. The move is happening this month; it's my Christmas vacation project.

Here's what I think is needed to get small businesses on Linux:

• Machines with pre-installed Linux at local computer stores
• A handful of applications (a la Filemaker Pro I guess) installable from CDs, purchased at the same store as the computer
• Local, cheap, computer firms that promote Linux will do setup and troubleshooting

Form factor yes, but on servers why??

[Yogs]

Don't get me wrong, I like small, light laptops, and LCDs. Attention to form factor makes a lot of sense when you're lugging something around, or you want to have, say, some desk space.

Now, servers are another beast. They sit there and do one thing. It doesn't really matter where they sit, so within reasonable limits, their size doesn't matter. They should also pretty much sit in one place, so why is wireless a selling point?

Power consumption does make a difference cost wise but you're overpaying for this thing so much that you can pretty well throw cost arguments out the window.

That leaves heat and noise as the remaining concerns. For heat, just add some fans, it's not that hard, and you don't even need to do that if you're using the machine so lightly that the a 533 with 128 mb of ram will do ya. Why do you care about noise (within reasonable limits) again? It's a server, you can put it wherever you want! How many times do I have to repeat that?

What is this? It's a gimmick... say it's an affordable server and someone who doesn't know about alternatives will think it is, rather than the old, overpriced laptop without an LCD display that it really is.

My 2c anyways.

What is this crap?

[shyster]

Okay, so for $1400, I'm getting about $300 or less of parts, a single point of failure for my entire network, and shoddy software.

Okay, so it's pretty and unassuming...looks just like a typical SOHO router. Big whoop. With the mass of Ethernet cables and power cords behind it, it's looks won't garner any awards I'd reckon.

The Low setting only blocks file sharing and proxy from the outside, but is the only Basic Mode setting with which you are able to run the VPN service.

That makes a whole lot of sense...I suppose that folks who want a VPN don't deserve a firewall too?

You can run multiple domains on the IT100, allowing for easy office setups where the hard drive space is shared between multiple companies.

Yeah...I've heard a lot of clamoring for that feature in the SOHO market. Glad they decided that was worthy of the cut....

...you are not allowed to set folder-level permissions for users on the IT100 server. However, every user has a folder that will be private to them on the network, and there is a separate public folder for all users.

A whole public folder, huh? And no folder or file level permissions? I suppose that granular Read/Write/Modify/etc. permissions are out of the question too then? Now I see why you may want multiple domains....

We were initially thrown off on how to connect to the IT100 for file sharing, as it was not accepting our logins. We quickly discovered that when logging in, we needed to include the full domain username, meaning the username "colin" became "colin@mydomain.com".

Does this mean it won't actually validate logins on say...login? Or that the reviewer couldn't figure it out? So much for replacing a domain controller, I guess....

Your username is limited to 19 characters, so if you have a long domain name, you may be in for a shortened username.

Okay, Bob, you're username is bob@sub.domain.local^H. Guess I'll have to fire Richard.

You could potentially run into problems where you have an office with ten employees, but only two people in that office should be able to read the sensitive files you want to share; you cannot set individual permissions for the folders. However, you can use file sharing from your local Windows/Linux computer and allow those users to properly access the files on your machine, so there is a work around.

Yep, it's a good thing I spent $1400 on a server so that I can resort to peer-to-peer networking. Won't this make backing up and finding files fun again?

VPN allows me to connect to my machine on my network without opening up my computers to the rest of the world by assigning them a public IP address.

Yeah, I guess since the firewall in this thing sucks ass, you would be opening your desktops to the rest of the world....

The web server was another cool feature added to the IT100 and would be great for sharing pictures with family and friends, or documents and other work information with business partners....this Apache server supports dynamic content such as PHP and CGI.

I know I always recommend running your dynamic content webserver on your domain controller and fileserver. Especially when your firewall (which is on the same box) sucks.

When it crashed, we did not have to do any maintenance, as it rebooted itself after 2 minutes. Normal file sharing went off without a hitch; it was only under the heavy traffic from encoding high quality MP3s that we were able to get the IT100 to crack. Again, you can tell by the system specs that the IT100 is not designed to be a heavy-duty server, and if it were, you would be paying five-times as much.

Re:hmm

[tigga]

My friend, silence is the future of computing. I really hate, I mean I - HATE - those god awful gianormous skyscraper towers that blast out 90dB of concentration breaking whirring and grinding sounds. Not to mention the heat and wasted space. Who needs 8 PCI slots, 12 drive bays, and a 600W power supply?! That's legacy garbage from the ;lt%90's man.

Do not confuse issues. Silence and space are perpendicular. Or may be not. It's much easier to silence tower than those tiny boxes. If you have powerfull processor you should have choice in cooling arrangements and in case of tiny box you do not have one.

You sound like one of those "old timers" that likes inefficient crap just because that's all you know.

This is unfair and non-mature.