Vendor touts notebook as We've all heard of laptop computers that have been designed to replace desktop PCs, but this is the first time we've come across one that's intended a server replacement. Notebook specialist Eurocom this week unwrapped the Phantom-X, a machine equipped with an quad-core, 95W, 12MB of L2 cache Intel Xeon X3360 processor running …
that's a nice bit of kit - I can immediatly think of two or three things it could be very useful for. A full demo system you could take to prospective clients so they could see the real thing running and as a bit of DR kit you can keep in a cupboard.
It's obviously not meant to be used as a mobile platform but a portable one.
Interesting piece of kit indeed.
How about adding some sliding rails to slot into a 19" rack, then you've got a 1U server with and integrated screen and keyboard.
No UPS, no KVM switches, it almost works to replace all of your regular web/mail/whatever servers with high spec laptops.
The price is a bit steep though: if Dell could turn out something similar at about £1500 then we might be talking business...
Or you could spend that £3000 on a pair of DL380s and a UPS and have proper servers.
DL360x2:
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?quicklinx=4PS0&tduid=a1ce54355b33411380dfef1de0a0b334
UPS:
http://www.stuff-uk.net/?s=ST-AF414A
Still, nice bit of kit - keep it linked as a backup DC/file server with a mirror of some users storage space on a USB drive, and i guess you could get some use out of it in a power cut.
An answer to a question very, very few people have asked methinks?
Steven R
I've had a few consultants pop round carrying a set of thinkpads in a client-server configuration, but a normal laptop can't usually cut the mustard when it comes to heavy server loading.
A bit niche-market though, and I'm not sure corporate IT departments will run to a non-big-4 (5? 3?) laptop manufacturer for it...
As already commented, it's not designed to be routinely run without mains power - but the battery is marketed as a UPS - to keep it running whilst the mains is interrupted.
Most of the time I use my laptop like that - it's docked in the office, and at home it's plugged into the mains next to the sofa. There's very few times that I actually use it without access to mains power. I use a laptop mainly for the portability, rather than the mains-less ability.
Certainly is useful for a demo server to take around to presentations etc.
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Of course they quoted raw capacity (3 x 500GB) for the press release, but really expect you to use a more redundant RAID setup if you care about data security.
And yes, a portable 'server' box one person can easily get in and out of a car has a LOT of uses. Let's face it client and server OSes are the same thing nowadays, just with different clothing and tweaks (remember Netware or LAN Manager anyone?), so a box that can function as both when necessary is a pretty obvious idea.
What goes around comes around: aren't blade servers really just laptop technology on steroids?
2.5" disks move the heads of the surface before spinning down - the better ones will move the heads somewhere safe during free fall on the assumption that the drive is about to experience a shock. 3.5" disk life time limited by the number of times the heads can land on the disk before they get scraped off. 3.5" disks do not bounce anything like as well as 2.5"disks.
If you want this thing to work reliably, keep one drive shut down in reserve and set up the other two mirrored.
Think of this box as being proof against spyware and adware. It can be loaded down with crap, take part in a brute force password cracking botnet and still keep up with an eee pc.
"2.5" disks move the heads of the surface before spinning down, 3.5" disk life time limited by the number of times the heads can land on the disk before they get scraped off"
I don't know where that bit of knowledge comes from but I have in front of me an (old, old) 2.5'' Quantum Daytona that cannot move the arms off the disk and IBM Deskstar from 2001 that can move them off into a little plastic clips (the only one in my 3.5'' collection that can do that). So, fact or fiction?
Blend?
Re: Re: Server disks in a portable?
As for the IBM Deathstar you have I have a group of drives on my wall coverless (the tech wall of shame or dead hardware), and the only one I have is an old Quantum Bigfoot that cannot move the heads off the disc. Even an old Maxtor Diamond has the ability to just you cannot see it as instead of moving it "OFF" the disc edge it moves towards the center and gets lifted off to park there. *shrugs* just my 2 cents.
They are quoting the standard Laptop battery (Lithium Ion I assume) as a UPS, yet I've seen that with most batteries of this kind that continuous charging actually slowly breaks the battery causing it to store a lower charge, therefore not lasting anything as long as it's supposed to. So after a few months of use the UPS becomes pretty useless...
Or is that only on the really crappy & cheap Dell ones?
O.K., so the beast stays up for an hour ... but what I want to know is what's going to power our networking and telephony structure when some JCB touting maniac cuts the cables?
Also, most laptop batteries I've had eventually die in short order when kept in the machine while the mains powers it. Sounds like a solution looking for a prob... oi! Who cut the lights?!?!
Looks disturbingly similar to the Rock Xtreme 64 I had.
The fans on that suck cool air in from the bottom and blow hot air out of the back and the sides. It was actually quite cool on your lap and the cat liked it because the graphics card exhaust blew hot air out of the side.
Of course, with the fans sucking air in from the bottom it makes it harder to pick up while it's running.
They are quoting the standard Laptop battery (Lithium Ion I assume) as a UPS, yet I've seen that with most batteries of this kind that continuous charging actually slowly breaks the battery causing it to store a lower charge, therefore not lasting anything as long as it's supposed to. So after a few months of use the UPS becomes pretty useless...
Or is that only on the really crappy & cheap Dell ones?
This is actually more of a design issue. Traditionally Dell laptops power up via the battery hence you can not remove the battery when the machine is on mains power. Hence Dell batteries have in my experience tended to run slightly warm even when the machine is on mains.
Most other laptops settle for a augmented supply configuration where the battery is an either/or option and gets charged via the mains when it is available. To me this latter configuration makes most sense for a UPS as a UPS should be able to handle a brown out as well as a conventional blackout.
However you do get problems with batteries when you cycle frequently my current laptop needed a new battery after 9 months of being power cycled twice a day but then most people don't need to work on a train for a stupid number of hours a day.
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