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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."
the primary benefit of this that makes it worthy of the cost is...?
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!
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
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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
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.
First thing I thought of too. But it would be great for LAN parties and sci-fi con road trips, especially if you hung a WAP off it!
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?
Years in pre-sales tell me there is one heck of a good use for it. Head for any customer site to set up a one-week proof of concept. Every time I've done this I've had to fight for space to set up the servers and another fight to make it half-way decent looking so we could make a good impression on the board room golfers. Setup and take down time, when engineers have to be their own roadies. Frankly, I would have killed for one.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear