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Portable Server for On-the-Road Development?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the code-fu-on-I81 dept.

DurnikBob asks: "I do a tremendous amount of development work sitting in hotel rooms while I'm on the road. While I've used Xen and VMware on my laptop, they come with limitations (memory usage, not 'real-life', interfere with my day job, and so on) that I'd like to move away from. I've looked at short depth 1U servers (the 19" wide makes it almost impossible to carry in the laptop bag), carrying a separate laptop (hate the weight penalty and cost of the not used keyboard and screen), the Mini-ITX field (each one I've looked at has the 1 DIMM, 1GB max limitation) and even the Mac-Mini (2" tall is a killer). Does anyone know if someone makes something along the lines of the following: small footprint (laptop size case 1" tall); Intel/AMD dual core capable; 2GB memory; space for 2.5" drives; on-board video (no need to fake it for headless operation); and on-board wireless?"

7 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Re:what's your server doing? by danpat · · Score: 3, Informative
    Wait for the Intel-based mini I suppose...
    What, like this one? http://www.apple.com/macmini/intelcore.html
  2. it already exists by Geekboy(Wizard) · · Score: 5, Informative

    you are describing the macbook pro. dual core 2GHz Intel Core Duo; 2G ram; 120G hd. quit your bitchin, and get a good machine.

    also, they have made this great utility that allows you to connect to another (possibly more powerful) machine. its called 'ssh'.

  3. 1U is okay but 2" is not? by Cryptnotic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You are aware that 1U is 1.75 inches, right?

    If the Mac mini w/ Core Duo and 2GB is not good enough, maybe you should look for a 1U half-width server. However, it will almost certainly cost you a lot more money.

    --
    My other first post is car post.
  4. Look at the T60p by (H)elix1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Take a look at the Thinkpad t60p series. Dual core, 4G of RAM, SATA drives... The bloody machine was a substantial jump forward from just about any workstation (or gaming rig) I've ever had. Doing development on my main box while running the application server stack on a VMWare image. Make sure you run Linux or Win64, or you might as well config it with 3G of RAM however.

    --
    +++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
  5. Eh? by adelayde · · Score: 3, Informative

    What are you on about?? Get a laptop and use that. If you need to run VMWare (why??), then get some more RAM in order to be able to run it. I do development on a low-end Dell Inspiron 510M with 1/2 GB RAM and develop in a Apache+mod_perl+Mysql+Emacs+Firefox environment and it runs fine, running Xorg, KDE, Thunderbird to boot. Any model laptop better than the one I have should do you proud. If weight's a problem, then Dells aren't maybe for you, get an iBook or a PowerBook or a Sony Vaio or something like that. Mac MINI's are pretty cool, but you'd need to buy a very small flat screen and mini keyboard and mouse. In short, I can't really see much point in your posting I'm afraid, the short answer is get a/another laptop my friend.

  6. Almost? by christopherfinke · · Score: 3, Funny
    the 19" wide makes it almost impossible to carry in the laptop bag
    *Almost* impossible? What kind of laptop bag do you have that can just barely carry a 19" wide server?
  7. Re:yes - get another laptop by Ratbert42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Reading between the lines, I think he doesn't want to do his side development on his employer's machine. Do what I do: get a second hard drive for your laptop. I swap hard drives and I'm in my own private environment. Then I can work on whatever I want. Or boot Knoppix and use a flash disk or external USB/Firewire drive for storage.