Data Center In a Shoe Box

eldavojohn writes "How would you like to have a data center that uses just 14.5 watts and weighs 255g? It's also only as big as a shoe box! The Register looks at a few solutions to network area storage that make buying a dedicated data server on a rack look like a relic of the past. Yes, it runs Linux."

Ogg Support???

[netsavior (627338)]

Yes, it runs Linux.

yeah but I doubt it can play Ogg files.

I for one welcome our shoebox dwelling data overlords.

Re:

[eebra82 (907996)]

yeah but I doubt it can play Ogg files.

It runs on a 400 MHz AMD/Raza MIPS chip. You can certainly play ogg files, but the lack of a sound card is probably going to make it into a pointless mission.

Re:

[raddan (519638)]

Just as a point of reference, I have a Soekris net4801-60 [soekris.com] connected to a USB-audio adapter, PCI USB2 card and external USB hard disk, and this machine plays MP3s just fine. It was a little bit of a gamble when I purchased the hardware, since I did not know if it was fast enough, but I did some tests using mpg123 on a similar machine (AMD K6) and it handled MP3 playback just fine. I briefly thought I was in trouble when I discovered that the USB-audio device could only playback audio at 48KHz, but surprisi

Re:

[dfranks (180507)]

The Alix series is definately worth checking out. We use their 2c2 board in our STACS field communications device that provides a VOIP switch, EV-DO, dual (WAN and LAN) 802.11g WiFi, INMARSAT BGAN satellite terminal, radio interface, GPS in an IP65 weatherproof, dustproof case at under 14 lbs. And that includes a SLA battery good for around 10 hours of operation. There is another processor on board, but the Alix provides the linux hub that drives the entire device and makes normal operation completely au

AppleTV

[clare-ents (153285)]

http://www.mythic-beasts.com/appletvdedicated.html [mythic-beasts.com]

15-20W, 1Ghz Core Solo, 256MB RAM, 40GB disk, already plugged in, masterswitched and ready to go.

disclaimer: I'm one of the company founders.

Re:

[clare-ents (153285)]

If you watch TV shows when you're sat in the data centre I guess is might be. If you're after a cheap dedicated linux server (and *lots* of people are) good luck finding something cheaper.

Re:

[prennix (1069734)]

They're hosting them at their data center.

so the size is completely irrelevant... seems like non news, as it doesn't seem to be "on sale" as the FA would suggest...

Re:

[beelsebob (529313)]

1) It's in a data centre. 2) The AppleTV just caches shows on it's disk, it can stream from iTunes on your computer too.

Data center at 5400

[iamhigh (1252742)]

Right, just what I want... a data center full of laptop hard drives running at 5400 RPM.

I wouldn't even want that bottleneck at home.

Re:

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

Yeah, but could you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things?

Re:

[DRAGONWEEZEL (125809)]

all this time, I thought beowulf was dead. Thanks for resurecting that meme!

Re:

[gbjbaanb (229885)]

a datacentre with a 5400rpm HDD would be a bad thing, but .. a 20-drive RAID5 array would not be so bad.

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I know more spindles = better performance, and you could fit a lot more little drives into an enclosure than the relatively large 3.5" drives, so perhaps the overall performance would be better.

I guess, in the end, you don't get 2.5" drives in SCSI flavour so its a bit pointless. the only good thing about 2.5" drives is that you can put them in an USB caddy without needin

Not even close to a data center

[h4rr4r (612664)]

Heck, not even close to a server or a SAN/NAS. 1TB of storage and a 266Mhz cpu mean that you would need a real data center full of these shoeboxes to get any real work done.

Small, Quiet, Slow Server with No Video

[billstewart (78916)]

One of the devices they mentioned was 400 MHz, one was 266. They're definitely servers, at least in the sense that they have no video (and unlike audio, which you can add with USB, there's no obvious way to add it.)

So it's basically something you'd use for a small home web server, or applications like DNS.

Another alternative is to take an old laptop and add a bigger disk.

Smart boxes

[by Anonymous Coward]

I have been thinking of setting up such shoe box server. It would be nice to have ftp, and maybe bittorrent, running without too much noise or heat. And saving the planet too, since it would cut down my carbon footprint.

Re:Smart boxes

[Nursie (632944)]

Funny mod? Oh well.

May I recommend a Linksys NSLU2?

266 MHz Arm chip. Not the fastest thing in the world, but you can install a full debian system onto it. I have one running torrentflux-b4rt over lighttpd. It also runs ushare so that the Xbox 360 (or other UPnP device) can stream the media. It also runs samba, which I expose via SSH so I can listen to my music from work.

Downsides -
It's slow. Real slow. Install and update of packages through the debian system, takes AGES.
If you're unlucky you'll get one that runs at 133 MHz and have to de-solder or cut through a resistor to get it up to full speed (quite easy really)

Upsides -
The only noise is the hard disk caddy and disk you choose.
You can leave it on all the time and it won't bump up your electricity bill by much.

Anybody know

[Xaoswolf (524554)]

the cost of one of these things? It says that they are onsale, but I didn't see any pricing information anywhere...

Re:

[Monkey (16966)]

If the 1 TB storage device intended to be used with this thing at $699 is any indication of cost , it's probably not cheap. At that price, cost savings on power consumption are insignificant compared to the savings that would be gained through simply purchasing commodity hardware.

Even smaller servers

[miller60 (554835)]

Those are pretty compact. A little while ago the Tzywen blog featured a number of novelty micro-servers [tzywen.com] that make the Plat'Home servers look like heavyweights.

Then there's an oldie but goodie: the World's Lowest Power Web Server [d116.com], running on a single AAA battery and a bank of potatoes.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Great. Now the World's Lowest Power Web Server has been slashdotted. They might even have to change the battery.

Re:

[jd (1658)]

Some time back, Slashdot ran a story on a server that was the size of a Russian matchbox, although storage space was somewhat limited and it was Slashdotted even quicker than most. As for the server the Register is talking about, the speed is deceptive as the MIPS is a RISC architecture and runs faster than the pure clock rating would imply. I'm guessing it's a 32-bit MIPS, though. (I could look up the specs, but it was painful enough reading the article.)

Re:

[Chris Mattern (191822)]

Some time back, Slashdot ran a story on a server that was the size of a Russian matchbox

"Russian matchbox"? Do Russians use matches of unusal size or something?

Re:

[bhima (46039)]

Yes, but they are a DIN norm. Unfortunately American & British matchboxes are entirely different sizes and are not standards... which is why they keeping using the old standards of bread boxes, Rhode Islands, and Libraries of Congress. Why the hell The Register is using the non standard size of a "shoe box" is beyond me... I guess it just goes to show their shoddy journalism.

Re:

[jsiren (886858)]

print "It's a matchbox"; while(true) { print " that contains a matchbox"; }

What what what?!

[techpawn (969834)]

So, why not ignore the chip and embrace a box that reflects an entire cultural ethos?

Because I was promised a data centre in a shoebox not an over hyped home file server bottleneck machine!
While we're at it, I want my flying car!

Question of reliability?

[TripMaster Monkey (862126)]

From TFA:

The LinkStation Mini uses a pair of 5,400RPM 2.5 inch notebook drives to perform its magic, making it the only Buffalo storage unit not to run on SATA drives. You can configure the device in RAID 0 or RAID 1.

Sorry, but while this sounds neat for the SOHO or hobbyist user, this isn't a corporate solution. Until you set up one of these little boxes with at least 5 drives in a RAID 5 array, it will remain nothing more than a curiosity.

Re:

[techpawn (969834)]

Exactly! I can easily see one of my friends asking if I'd like to see their new data centre then opening a modded old style coke machine reviling one of these set ups with beer next to it.
But, I cannot for the life of me can not see any serious professional considering this as an enterprise solution.

Re:

[WK2 (1072560)]

Sorry, but while this sounds neat for the SOHO or hobbyist user...

It's too expensive for 99% of SOHO users. Not that they can't afford it, but most would rather just get a USB HDD, or something like the WD myBook. A hobbyist would probably rather make something like it himself.

This all doesn't sound that radical

[Aram Fingal (576822)]

The server units don't seem any more radical than a Mac Mini and there are many small NAS units that have been around for a long time.

Nslug anyone

[silas_moeckel (234313)]

The first one with it's ability to run via poe was nice but otherwise they look a like like the old lynksys nslug by the specs.

Running a pair of notebook hard drives as a mirror set might cut it for a very modest office or a home user. But it seems a bit nicer to put it all into one package like the asus and linksys AP's with USB ports for drives and printers.

Um... data center != NAS server !=this

[EriktheGreen (660160)]

This article is about a nifty little NAS server that's turn-key, runs linux, and runs on an embedded MIPS chip. It's neat, but it's not a replacement for a data center. Or most workgroup file servers. It's about on a par with the network attached hard drives that are pretty common in most computer stores now. Kinda neat, but unless you're into "japanese-ness" of technology that's all it is. This stuff doesn't matter....

Re:

[hey! (33014)]

Well, sure, but I also remember when Japanese cars were called "rice cookers". I can recall marveling at this tiny Datsun sedan with its almost toylike 1.2l, 69 hp engine that one of the neighbors bought. I thought it was cool, although that was a decidedly non-cool idea of "cool".

The other neighbors had cool cars like the Plymouth Duster, which boasted 225hp and nearly five times the displacement of the Datsun. Another neighbor had a Buick Wildcat with a 401 inch (6.6l) V8 that generated an astonishing 3

Re:

[EriktheGreen (660160)]

>That doesn't necessarily mean you can pull your boat trailer with a 69 hp engine, of course.

Sure you can, if it's geared correctly. Check out the HP ratings on the US Army 2 1/2 ton trucks that were used in world war II... you'll be surprised :)

Re:

[hey! (33014)]

Sure, but I'm assuming that you (a) want to arrive at the boat ramp in one piece and (b) you want to actually spend time with the boat in the water this weekend...

Yes, but

[wumpus188 (657540)]

For a real datacenter you will need a Beowulf cluster of these.

Re:Yes, but

[jd (1658)]

Nononono. When it's shoeboxes, the correct clustering term is an Imelda Marcos.

Begs the question

[iminplaya (723125)]

Just how many of these "data centers" would it take to fill Imelda Marcos' closet?

Hehe the Mrs. is gonna be pissed

[garett_spencley (193892)]

When she realizes there's no shoes in the thing.

Belated April fool's joke here I come...

NSLU2 by linksys

[Ardeaem (625311)]

These devices look like they do basically the same thing as the NSLU2, by linksys, which you can hack to run debian. I have one running in my living room right now. Or am I missing something?

Wrong market targeting

[sw155kn1f3 (600118)]

No way it's going to do anything to real data centers.. And just targeting this slashdvertisment as "data center for geeks in you mom basement" is just stupid. For real geeks is laughable - kind of child play, for all of us who seen real DC hardware.
For general consumer which wants his routing and data back up it's not going work too. Sounds too complex (marketed for geeks), too hard to configure.
These are just glorified routers for very limited community to write software for and hack various devices with

It's not a datacenter it MONITORS datacenters

[gelfling (6534)]

The devices are designed to monitor other devices like surveillance cameras, vending machines, data collectors, VPN servers, simple NIDS appliances, even firewalls and whatnot.

It's very similar to industrial SBC computers, onboard car computers and the devices that are stuck on telephone poles, cell phone towers for remote C.O. management. SBC's, PC104s, pico-ILX form factor devices that use boot from flash with memory card storage are pretty common. What they've done here is bolted that spec on to common P

255g!

[e2d2 (115622)]

255g? That's only .04 stone!

YOU CAN'T BUY THEM.

[Caspian (99221)]

I'm sick of people Slashvertising these devices. You cannot buy them. [plathome.com] Quoted from their own goddamned page: "We do not sell the MicroServer series directly to consumers.". Period, full stop, end of sentence. You can't buy them. Maybe the company you work for can buy them... presumably, if they want to buy many of them. But you, the consumer, the individual geek hobbyist, can't buy one to mess around with.

where is the demand for this

[blhack (921171)]

This really feels like a neat piece of tech just LOOKING for a market. The linked website doesn't say anything about fitting a laptop hardrive or anything inside of it. It just says "flash card". So it can't store much, but it DOES have ethernet ports.

So is this thing pointing itself at the Soekris [soekris.com] or W.R.A.P [pcengines.ch] boards then (these devices are both aimed at embedded firewalls, and wireless access points)? It really doesn't look that way.

So you've basically got yourself a little box, with a flash card slot i

Here's one you CAN buy

[FranTaylor (164577)]

www.soekris.com

I have a 5501. It works like a champ. Fedora 8 runs great on it. 500 MHz Geode, 512 MB RAM, 4 x 100 Mb Ethernet, USB, CF, PATA, SATA. The computer uses 5 watts and the SATA drive uses another 2 watts.

Mini-ITX and Blades

[bradgoodman (964302)]

It's not quite a "shoebox" - but same principal. I made a 40-node Mini-ITX datacenter a few years back. Very cheap, low-power, cool (temperature), etc.

I still use one as my main server at home.

Picts at:

http://www.bradgoodman.com/pictures/itxblade.jpg [bradgoodman.com]

http://www.bradgoodman.com/pictures/itxbladex40.jpg [bradgoodman.com]

Don't bother trying to buy one...

[mccabem (44513)]

From their website [plathome.com], "We do not sell the MicroServer series directly to consumers."

Cute, but no data center

[nurb432 (527695)]

I don't see any redundancy for starters.

Also, a 'data center' is more then just lots of storage, people also run applications and 'services' ( like SQL ) in the "data center".

For something to carry around in your bag or to stick in your garage or the trunk of your car, it might be nice, but please don't misrepresent it.

Re:

[Kevin Stevens (227724)]

This seems kind of gimmicky. The price point makes it unlikely that any home users will purchase it when it is cheaper to buy a usb harddrive, but the form factor and hardware make it impractical for an enterprise setting where it doesn't make any real sense in a large distributed network.

Though I suppose it could be good for a small office setting with file sharing needs...

So theres that..

This product in particular is weak and I am not sure why this review in particular made the front page, but I do have a NAS box of a different sort that works quite well, at least for my purposes. I live in NYC, and so my apartment is not much larger than a shoebox, and I got rid of my desktop awhile back in favor of just keeping a much smaller laptop. Laptops have small drives though, and I wanted more storage. A small NAS box fit the need perfectly- I got one by Synology that is a BYOD (Bring Your Own D

Re:

[gfxguy (98788)]

Since I use my laptop for most of my work (it's quieter, uses less energy, and there's no performance penalty for practically everything I do, which is mainly just editing files), I'd been thinking of what a good desktop replacement system would be.

First, the reason I still keep my desktop is for higher end video... games and occasionally video editing. So I was thinking along the lines of a replacement system that was as generic as possible...

A small system with a brick power supply... it would only have