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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?
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 !
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.
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
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
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
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.
Makes setting up adhoc computer systems simple.
Just because 99% of the market works with standalone equipment doesn't mean everybody has to, I'm quite convinced there is a market for mobile servers, and why should they be ugly boxes?
Here we are at the [Local_Town] cinema for week 3 of our countrywide [insert_game_name] competion tour.
We have another 64 contestents hoping to make it through to the next round.
liqbase
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 ----
"It's like putting a server into a refrigerator. Makes no sense too.But has no heat-problems." Dude. You are so far from being in the light. A server in a fridge. Snacks?=Beer?=Server? That means, when some little kid breaks the print server, you can actually get excited about going to go fix it.
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.
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
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
"Server" and "neon lights" are mutually exclusive.
How about first go to your fridge, afterwards to repair yur server.
Or other way round, as you prefer.
That way you have more space to store snacks and beer in your fridge.
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.
Just because, blinking lights and windows and sprayed pictures and the more on are for kids.
A server has per definition other priorities.
This is a piece of tech to work with. Not a playground for stylingfreaks.
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
I used to laugh at all those people that put lights inside their cases. Then I started watching Stargate. I quickly noticed that the Goa'uld, the Ancients, and pretty much every other technologically advanced race that SG-1 encounters also like to light up the insides of their equipment bays for no apparent reason. So maybe I'm just being a spoilsport.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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.
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...
Where's the how to on how to install Debian on this thing?
Speak truth to power.
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...
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.
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
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.
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?
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)
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.
When is your 11th birthday? It's comming up right? Horray for the big birthday boy!
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...
Just epoxy a handle on to the Xserve and you're good to go. Screw the mac mini.
moox. for a new generation.
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
You want me to be a little boy? You perv. Go back to your NAMBLA meetings you pig.
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.