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Server Inside a Suitcase
Spleener12 writes "Andrew Larson and Derek Radke have come up with an interesting case mod concept: a fully fledged server inside of a suitcase (originally designed to hold airsoft guns,) complete with a window, neon lights, and plenty of external ports. The case is a result of a summer's worth of research, design, and construction, and they are planning on constructing a few more to sell to any interested buyers."
This will go over well with airport security.
Slashdot. Adverts for Nerds. Products that matter.
People that believe in their opinions don't post AC.
Wouldn't a laptop be a heck of lot easier to carry onto the plane?
the primary benefit of this that makes it worthy of the cost is...?
"My suitcase got slashdotted."
I can probably think of about 500 different places to hide a mini-ATX board in about an hour, so who cares? I mean, if they did something that not many people can do, that's one thing. But throwing a motherboard and components into a suitcase is nothing to get excited about. Why did this make it to the front page of slashdot?
Guard1: "its a BOMB!"
:("
Guard2: "Lie on the ground with your hands on your head and legs apart"
You: "but its just my computer server
liqbase
1. Take MacMini. 2. Place in Suitcase. 3. Turn on.
It's a cool mod, but I don't see any advantage to it that you couldn't get adding a handle to a SFF PC.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
What if i had this server on my lap the moment slashdot linked to it?
Your skill in reading has increased by one point!
While im normaly quite impressed by case mods and so on, this thing is little more than a very large steel suitcase with an average machine in it.
I would have been more impressed were it a dual xeon with yada yada yada.... but this thing is hardly anythinbg to gawk at... or care for.
Hell my laptop is a development server... surely it coudltn stand a slashdotting, but neither could this pathetic mod.
Bottom line, Grab any off the shelf 1U rackmount server (HP,DELL, IBM, VISIONMAN, etc) ... attach a handle.... and youve got the same thing, but probably at half the cost and better hardware.
dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
If it weren't for Bush outsourcing all the IT jobs, nobody would NEED a server in their travel bag!
Before any liberals are tempted to mod up one of my comments, a word of warning: I'm actually making fun of you.
A laptop isn't a server. Imagine, you take on a suitcase, and your 5 friends hook their laptops up to your suitcase for some quick LAN gaming on the plane!
Why not mount the switches so they are flush with the edge of the case rather than having that unslighly mess of millions of cables?
Anyone that uses crap network gear like SMC cannot be taken seriously.
http://graphics.cs.uni-sb.de/SysAds/Hardware/moc.
http://graphics.cs.uni-sb.de/SysAds/Gallery/moc20
mobile Beowulf ;P
Did you notice that all pictures are linked through the nyud.net mirrors system ?
Someone told him that he was going to be slashdotted. That's not fair ! He was supposed to be melting by now !
an got rebooted out of the place.
Come on. If you are taking the time to build a server inside a suitcase and post the story on slashdot please take that extra second to remove any smelly slippers and crumbled brown paperbags out of the way before you take a picture.
Thank you.
Is This a retoric question? ;-)
Yet another pointless case-mod story. And it's not even that well executed. The stupid clear window will get all scratched and fugly looking if it actually does any real travel, and those knobs, ports, etc on the end are sure to be broken in short order.
A decent laptop plus smallish Etherhub or two is more useful (consider that a laptop has an LCD screen and can run of it's own batterY), probably 1/2 the cost, and 2x more portable.
These fools actually thing someone is going to PAY them to duplicate this horrid experiment?
-This sig intentionally left blank
Who cares?
Blah, in college 2 years ago I made my old briefcase (about 1/3 of the size he made) into a server. Window, power port, ethernet port. Graphics card was left out (who needs one for a server?)
Should have slashdotted it =P
Ok let's make a little quiz.
What are servers for?
Your right! They run services for other pcs.
What use is a server with no other pcs around?
Right again! None at all.
Who will carry around 3+ pcs plus one suitcase-server?
Wow your awesome, right a third time.
Noone will.
This is a waste of time and money.
It's like putting a server into a refrigerator.
Makes no sense too.But has no heat-problems.
Let's forget this crap and go on to something more important.
0. Place PC in MacMini
About four years ago, I met a gentlemen and his son while attending an InstallFest at Cleveland Linux Users Group meeting. He was carrying an old aluminum case similar to the pictures. It did not have the fancy neon, but it was similar in concept. It strictly has a Linux on it (I think it was Slackware, IIRC)
Anyway, this person and his son built it because the child frequently visited his grandmother who did not have a computer. So this child would bring the case along with him and have access to a computer.
I thought it was unusual, but very practical and self-contained. The parts were commodity parts that you can find in any catalog and were inexpensive. Last I heard, the man was planning to have a LCD panel integrated in it. Unfortunately, I lost contact when I decided to move. I wish I could show him this.
Coderz 4 Life
It's a shame that although the design of the suitcase makes it pleasing to the eye, the website (Which I imagine did not take a year to design and construct) does not have a similar effect. If they want to sell these things, I'd imagine a new slashdot proof server and nice website is in order :)
Dave Bell
http://sciesnet.net/pics/001.jpg: //sciesnet.net/pics/002.jpgi esnet.net/pics/003.jpgt ercomment, blabla
babblings
http
blablabla
http://sc
compression filter
http://sciesnet.net/pics/004.jpg
less repetition
http://sciesnet.net/pics/005.jpg
pos
http://sciesnet.net/pics/006.jpg
http://sciesnet.net/pics/007.jpg
Their first sale was to SCOX's Blepp, and that's the magic briefcase where he has all the evidence!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I wanted a fileserver that was portable. I also wanted a backup. So I got two mini itx motherboards, a couple aluminium cd carring cases a few hard drives and I'm pretty happy with the result. I just add a new disk when the current one gets full and I rsync them nightly. I think I'll be able to get 8 disks in each eventually. That's 7 data and 1 for the operating system, my personal data, debian mirror, etc.
-- john
Here is Coral link
I like how a lot of you guys are being assholes about this. Maybe you don't realize that they are college students. How is a college student going to afford 8 way opterion innards for their guncase server? Seriously I think the whole point is that it was a relatively new case mod idea, because seriously, no matter how many times mr Larson and I have had this discussion, putting lights inside your computer does *not* make it faster. It's eye candy, plain and simple. Give these guys a break, I mean in real life I hate Larson, but sheesh.
Ive seen more powerfull noname laptops!!! cost ~$1100 CAN ,you get 3.2Ghz, 512Mb, 60Gb harddrive...
Whats the point of something bit and heavy, with no screen, cant power itself, and has a slow cpu!
Laptop > Suitcase PC.
(both would burn your lap if they were slashdoted though ;) )
my karma ran over your dogma
putting a server into an easily transported suitcase may have been interesting five years ago perhaps for use in trade shows as demo servers in booths or other instances where you may want a powerful computer to travel around with you.
Now it's not particularly useful - the average high end laptop can certainly perform this role as required and it is easily transported. I've even set up a laptop as a mobile tradeshow server complete with DHCP, dns server, email server, java app server and database. Probably not so impressive a feat for the average Slashdot reader but one that did not need a powerful suitcase server.
Also, if you want a nice transportable rugged server why not use a Pelican case. Water tight and virtually indestructable I'd be a little more impressed at such a thing.
A server with neon lights and a window? Id like to see a datacenter that would use this... Disco Datacenter?
Peep that
It depends on your laptop's stats, and what OS you are running..
Would I run a business on one? Of course not..
Would I use it for 'parties' and emergency use at a client site.. sure..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That sort of mod would also go over well at the airport..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I have Apache, PHP and MySQL installed on my Powerbook. If I put it in my suitcase with a neon light, do I get a Slashdot story, too?
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
I use luggable PC's over 10 years ago. (IBM PS/2 Model 80, I think) Talk about a royal pain in the ass lugging it through airports. Great excercise but a nightmare to get through security. I can only imagine what it'd be like these days.
Slashdot-News for Managers around the Globe.
"Originally designed to hold airsoft guns"
Here in the USA, it was originally designed to hold real guns.
Would that be Mike and the Idiot Child we see in 2005_01-file_servers-6232.jpg? TANSTAAFL!
Spiritus ex Machina
"The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we CAN imagine."
We are looking at an initial run of only 2 cases.
What the heck kind of business model is this? True, they're getting panned in 99% of the comments here, but isn't it a better idea to say "we are looking at an initial run of however many orders we get in the next three weeks" or similar? Talk about slack; it's obvious they're college students whose lives are being subsidized.
Ahem: "Wouldn't a beowolf cluster of these things be awesome." Thank you.
Can watch when they try to get it past the X-ray machines at the airport? :)
Looks like the server was running on the suitcase after all.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
Am I the only one sick of all these whiners who complain about the articles on Slashdot?
/. on /., but you just come off as crybabies.
If you don't like the articles, don't read Slashdot, dammit.
You people think you're being cool by complaining about
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
Everyone pops a little chub when a guy builds a case out of some animu doll (or george foreman grill for that matter) but everyone complains when a guy puts a server in a suitcase...
I made a File Server in a Briefcase but its no where near as cool as that. And they actually put a lot of effort into that. Mine was just kinda dremeling out port hotes... Its cool though. Runs Fedora. Willy
...how handy one of these suckers will be at a LAN party. Computer in one suitcase, server in the other.
"Server" and "neon lights" are mutually exclusive.
This,where they show a very huge suitcase and somebody says,this is the laptop...
That thing kind of reminds me of the old Sniffer cases that in turn reminded me of the old Kaypros; kind of a suitcase-sized (as opposed to this thing's briefcase sized) PC.
I'm surprised no one has made an actual oversized laptop out of one, including the LCD display and some real hardware expansion capability.
Done right, you'd have a great on-site server for testing or crash repairs. You need something sized right to match a real server.
God forbid thieves be able to see what's inside the briefcase before making the grab!
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
Fully fledged? WTF? So is this server capable of independent flight or is it covered with feathers?
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
Ironic in that Coral Cache is down, but remove the .nyud.net part and the images work. Coral shows it's uselessness now.
and they're commonly available. You should be able to find plenty of links with a quick Google.
The trick with most of them is getting video to the built-in LCD. I'm still not clear on how that's done. Some of the old cases included an ISA video card that was built specifically for the LCD, and you'd just pop it into whatever motherboard you ended up mounting in the case.
I've also seen some really classy portable CPCI cases, with vertical slots, integrated LCD/keyboard, and everything you'd expect from an industrial CPCI case.
...is that they only move a few watts of heat at once. They'll get you down to a nice chilly temperature, but if you put a big machine in there, it'll exceed the compressor's ability to move heat.
Try it, empty your fridge, put a hairdryer in there, plug 'em both in, and come back in an hour. See who's winning!
After all, it can be filtered by topic with the Sections links. (If you learned anything with the previous sentence you must be new here. Side note: funniest submission ever.)
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
My boss has a friend who has done tours around the country to high schoool and college CS classes, demoing parallel computation techniques.
He found it difficult to count on suitable computer resources, so he put four small ATX motherboards in a suitcase with power supplies, hard drives, and a four port switch. He just powers everything up when he gets to his destination and he's good to go. TSA apparently gives him weird looks but not much more.
There are atleast 8 fans in this thing - One of which is a stock heatsink & fan.
I'll bet this thing sounds like a NASA launch site when it's running.
When I went home christmas last year I brought a broken PSU to get replace. Anyway, I put it in my bag which counted as hand luggage.
What I hadn't thought of was that it'd have to go through security, and a mysterious box with cables coming out of it should alert the security at least a little. But guess what - not a word.
So the next time you want to bomb a plane, put the bomb inside an ATX PSU, and you get past security no prob!
So a suitcase computer shouldn't cause much problem around here...
If you want to learn more about what airsoft is you can check out 2 great movies at http://www.lostspoon.com/
Pretty cool indoors CQB.
Sage for unoriginality (or mod down in other words)
Mini-itx.com has already featured a mod like this.
Nothing to see here. keep moving on.
Where's the how to on how to install Debian on this thing?
Speak truth to power.
Because putting something in a 1U case makes it withstand a slashdotting better...
Actually, a 2200MHz CPU may be a lot more than what's needed (especially if it's mostly static, uses proper caching and all). The main thing is definately bandwidth here, and no case or cpu will give you that.
Modders have been doing this kind of thing for years. In fact, several PC's have been made inside of suitcases exactly like that one. I suppose putting a server in it is a new idea, but I still don't think it's slashdot worthy...
Rather offtopic but as good a place to give airsoft some PR as any. Very fun sport in many ways comparable to paintball but suffers from a lot of myths and misinformation.
Here is the famous newbie guide by DumboRat.
yawn
why?
thank you. this brilliant analysis will only cost you $99 to save hundreds if not thousands in man hours next time.
In a case with about the same footprint (though much more depth) I routinely carry 3 Shuttles and all the associated cabling.
I built the kit for trade shows almost two years ago, but we've used it a lot for conference room demos, as well. The Shuttles are quiet enough to have all three running on the conference room table. Server, network emulator and client, which I just hook up to the projector in the conf. room.
This kit's been to Europe twice and on countless domestic trips as checked baggage, and I've had zero problems with the hardware.
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
having a good looking but fairly non functional suitcase is a waste. I would much rather have a server in a pelican case, which would be easily done if I just wanted to go out and make it happen, why is this front page material? Also, if one wanted a really worthwhile suitcase type server, they could get one of the rugged portable dual xenon server luggables from a place like BSI computers.
-C-
The article states that this server runs on an 8255 using PicoJava. I thought that sort of technology went the way of the dinosaur. I wonder what the reason was for selecting it.
Reminds me of the time I turned up on a MOD (Ministry of Defence) base in the UK to upgrade a server. After the rigorous security I was escorted to the office block and shown in to an office.
"The server's in the corner over there", I was told, together with some vague hand pointing. Walking in the general direction indicated, I couldn't see anything remotely PC-like. "Er, where exactly?" I said. "Oh, hang on...", came the reply. The filing cabinet in the corner had a padlock removed and the bottom drawer was pulled out. There in the drawer was a Toshiba T3200 (386-20 with orange plasma screen - remember those!?), running Netware 386 3.0.
Not exactly a case mod, but the most unusual housing for a server I've ever come across!
AT&ROFLMAO
"someone posted this to slashdot without my approval. it is an unfinished site. please check back later for the finished version."
Fuck you, it's on the internet, thats our approval.
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
What is the heck is this about? I have seen at least half a dozen computers in the same category on different LAN-Parties here in Norway. OK, so maby not all of them had as much work put into them as this, and as far as I can remember there was no silver coloured alumina, but the consept of computers in suitcases or whatever is -old- I really dont see why this was /.-ed.
Big deal.
You can have a server on a ring and wear it on your finger.
What does it serve? Http?
What does that mean, a server in a suitcase?
I could put my notebook computer in a suitcase and there it is, a server in a suitcase.
This is not news.
Ha, I can probably fit four Mac minis in my suitcase. Four UNIX servers! Will that get me a front page advertisement on Slashdot, too?
I gotta say, i think it's a very beautiful looking mod. This thing would be great for a LAN party just to show off or something...
It's not original, but what mod is? Chances are, if you can think of it, about 1200 other people have too. Frankly, im sick of people mounting ATX cases their old school nintendos.
It's not the concept that really appeals to me here. I just like the way it looks, it's a very professional looking job from the few pictures i saw on the site. Everything looks very clean, very functional.
And apparently, Airflow isn't much of a problem with this, those of you who, like me, are running on Fragbox-type systems can appreciate a good LAN gaming system that's both portable and is able to take the heat thrown out by our hardware.
Yes, the designers could definitely throw in better hardware into this thing, But ya know what, For designing a mod like this, and im guessing that this was one of their first, you spend a lot of money on just time and materials used learning the different techniques.
Great job to the two of you that built this, It truly is a piece of Art.
That's about how much a PS/2 Model 80 weighed. Solid steel case.
You were lugging this through an airport? Last time I picked one up I had to sleep on the floor for several days to straighten out my back.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
i heard of these things called laptops; they fit in smaller cases and they won't make you look like a fool...
Get your torrents...
Another way to carry the PC: http://loja.clubedohardware.com.br/detalhes.php?id =38
(in portuguese)
Because every single sales site on the Internet should be built for thousands of people at once.
He wasn't ready for this and is a little upset to wake up on a Sunday morning having to piece everything back together.
It's fun to be so cool though, isn't it?
In case you find this above poster's actions to be obnoxious and completely out of line, be sure not to visit him at home and tell him:
Understudy
Domain Name: UNDERSTUDY.NET
Registrant:
Mr Brendhan Horne
5331 Ruth Dr.
West Palm Beach
FL
33415
US
Stings a little to have your privacy violated in front of tens of thousands, doesn't it?
Understudy, I am impressed with your ability to act like an absolute troll. Suitcaseservers.com is being mirrored by nyud.net otherwise it would be down. In all of your infinite wisdom, you failed to notice this before making your gold plated post. I fail to see what your problem is. Does posting his personal info make your dick bigger? This is obviously some college kid who built something he thought was cool and wanted to show it off. Cut him some slack. So yeah its been done before. Why don't you take your bitching to the /. admins. They are the ones who posted it on the frontpage anyway.
... ... ...
:)
Anyway, while we are still playing the "post the personal info" game, I though I would have a try.
(~)> whois understudy.net
BW whois 3.4 by Bill Weinman (http://whois.bw.org/)
Copyright 1999-2003 William E. Weinman
Request: understudy.net
whois server for *.net is whois.crsnic.net
connected to whois.crsnic.net [198.41.3.54:43]
connected to whois.easyspace.com [198.104.159.66:43]
Registrant:
Mr Brendhan Horne
5331 Ruth Dr.
West Palm Beach
FL
33415
US
Domain Name: UNDERSTUDY.NET
Administrative Contact, Billing Contact, Technical Contact, Agent:
"Mr 34SP.com Hostmaster"
Phone: +44 906 216 1940
Fax:
Record last updated on 2004-04-03.
Record expires on 2006-04-10.
Record created on 2002-04-10.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS.34SP.COM 212.187.158.3
NS2.34SP.COM 212.100.224.247
Have a nice day
Its good to see someone finds this kind of activity offensive.
...that is my arm.
-- john
First off I know very well that my info is out there. If I wanted it hidden I would do so. So posting my info doesn't bother me. The gentleman had a public website then bitches about people linking to it. If you don't want it out there don't make it public. I think it is great that they are being mirrored by nyud.net. I hope that helps his site stay up. Just don't sit there and whine about having a public page and having it get linked to. Which is what he did. He wants to whine about the five minutes he threw the page together in and then make sure that permission is asked before linking to it. No it doesn't make my dick feel bigger it doesn't need to. Don't put pages that aren't ready and don't complaign about pages you make avaliable to the public. So everyone may see this as a troll. It is not. It never fails to amaze me at how people make things public and then complaign when others look at them.
I don't think he was complaining at all. The site states that it was a temporary page that got linked to before it was ready. If he was complaining, the site would be down with a rant in its place. The only whining here is in the parent post. Show a little respect for people who are trying the best they can. Not everyone is capable of building a professionally designed webpage. Unfortunately, everyone seems to be capable of writing bitcy slashdot posts.
Unfortunately, everyone seems to be capable of writing bitcy slashdot posts.
:) I like that. That was good.
However, it doesn't change that the guy complaigned. He mentioned linking to his site without permission. wahh.
The page that is linked is his index.html page. Again this wasn't some hidden backdoor not linked page. It was his front page.
Also the site was registered on Jan 30th of this year. Assuming he didn't create the web page the day he registered it he still had ablity to spend more than 5 minutes on it. And if linking to it was such a problem he could have taken it down and left it blank or put up something saying that the server was being slammed and would resume once normal traffic levels had returned. I don't expect everyone to agree with me. I knew the post would not make everyone happy, and I knew it would cause a backlash. Maybe however someone will look at it and say maybe before I make this public I will think twice. Making things public isn't a bad thing. It just is requires a bit of thinking and if you don't think it is ready for the public, don't make it so.
This is nothing new. Sean Horan did this in 2001 at Def Con. See the article here. Search for "suitcase" or "Horan."
Beware, Nugget is watching... See?
http://sciesnet.net.nyud.net:8090/pics/006.jpg
The desktop-type hard drives don't even appear to be shock-mounted. For this reason alone, I would stay well away from this...
Dear Underwearstudy,
A quick comment about your website:
http://www.understudy.net/
The Big Blue Eyeball on the beginning of your webpage that users click on to proceed, is wrong color. It is blatently obvious you like to have your Brown Eye Poked, not your blue eye.
--
Your Buddy,
H. Rollins
Just epoxy a handle on to the Xserve and you're good to go. Screw the mac mini.
moox. for a new generation.
Am I the only one sick of all these whiners who complain about the articles^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H posts on Slashdot?
/. on /., but you just come off as crybabies.
If you don't like the articles^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H posts, don't read Slashdot, dammit.
You people think you're being cool by complaining about
> Bush outsourcing all the IT jobs
You hit the nail on the head. He is in the process of destroying every single middle-class job in this country. He is even rewarding companies with tax breaks that starve employees by tossing them out onto the street. Hitler hated the jews. I can understand hating a certain race of people, but hating a group of people just because they don't make enough money doesn't make sense to me. Many of the now rich were once middle-class. Bush wants to destroy the ability to move into his exclusive class of privilege. Please help in the fight against Bush's intentional destruction of this country. http://www.democraticunderground.com/
I think you are going out of your way to close your ears to everyones concern about what you did. Having the information available on WhoIs is hardly the same as posting it on a major web page. You still haven't bothered to show the relevance between his whiney front page and your mean-spirited post. Go ahead and complain about his whiney front page, no problem, but did you really need to provide such easy access to his information? Just because it doesn't bother you doesn't mean that it does not bother other folks.
Reading between the lines, it's not hard to imagine what is going on there. It seems likely to me that a friend of the web page author posted the page to SlashDot before the author was ready for everyone to see it. The web page rant was likely aimed at that friend. Is that so hard to understand? He probably had every intention of sharing it with the world but was hoping to have everything the way he wanted it before it went out to the world. Then his friend came along and screwed it up. The author was probably just disappointed. He's just a human, you know. Was it really necessary for you to punish him?
Send/track messages to 100K people: www.xPressAlert.com
1: take a suitcase 2: get a mac mini 3: throw mac mini instead suitcase 4: turn on mac mini 5: close suitcase
I don't know about the rest of you, but I think that this is the coolest server ever... and the fact that it's a shotgun case makes it even more appropriate at a LAN party. This is a whole LAN party in a case. Walk in, plug in power and you're ready to host. I mean 16 10/100 and 5 gigabit ports, thats an awsome backbone for a LAN. All it needs is legs so it can be it's own table. While yes, you can do bigger and better (and you can if you build your own like I'm now going to do) but you just CAN'T beat that coolness factor. BEST CASE EVER!
I'll Find You Peer, If It's The Last Thing I Do!!!!
so attach a 16 port desktop switch. still smaller than this lame effort.
if you are going to do something then at least make it stand out. http://bit-tech.net/article/149/ is an example of creative thinking and hardwork. I believe that this weak story was posted due to some kind of polictial pressure. Has someone beeing putting the pressure on the editors or was the news day that fscking slow...
My Doom. The gift that keeps on giving