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Hardware

3 Computers in One Case 67

Posted by CmdrTaco from the isn't-that-cute dept.
Sam Rowe writes "Siamese Systems have a case that will hold three machines and their website features Tux. they also have an 8 machine case. " they don't have prices, but they do look kinda nifty. I think I'd just rather get a big rack. Throw out my refrigerator and keep it in the kitchen.
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3 Computers in One Case More

3 Computers in One Case

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  • The specific case mentioned (the 3-pack) might not be ready yet, but they have other multiple computer cases available right now. Check out the 8-pack [siamese.co.uk], very very nice, available today for 800 quid.
  • or using it as a case. Go ahead. Do it.

    "But J! What about my 3 cases of beer and my jar of pickles?" Not to worry my friend...that's what block ice and the bathtub is for.
  • Posted by Just Another Perl Slacker:

    I think I read on their web site that there is a built-in switch for video, keyboard, and mouse.
  • Posted by majestic1:

    Tux was all over the place.. and some sexy alphas. Seems they're obviously tryin to market it at all of the multiple os users out there. (probably most slashdot readers) .. Personally I think they'd be better tryin to sell it to businesses. But hey.. I still want one.
  • You could do something very similar with NeXT cubes. A little-tiny bit of creative jumper-connecting, and you could stick up to four motherboards in the thing.

    The best use I've seen it put to was sticking a high-end NeXT mobo with its high-end graphics system in two slots, and two extra net-booting low-end systems in the other two. Total of four monitors (three monochrome), with one monochrome and the color being used dual-headed.

    All from one case, so it would be convenient for, say, sticking the Cube in the middle of a conference table, and then having three people work together. Or you could replace the extra graphics board with a third motherboard, and get a four-person system.

    It's also been done with two motherboards with high-end graphics -- good I suppose if the collaborative work is graphics.

    I really don't think there's much cooler stuff you can do to a case, with so little hardware work.
  • I would rather have a rack system anyday. Why would you want to cram all that crap into a tiny box? Electrical interference, cabling, cooling, expandability and cost all seem prohibitive. At least with a rack or standalone units, if one blows up you don't have to take out the whole setup.

    What's up with the renderings anyway? I'll believe it when I see sheetmetal.

  • Besides, unless you're drinking horse piss (aka American beer), it's better warm anyway.
  • I can't get through to the site. I really wish I could, because I would like to see why they think this is a good idea.

    I can see a possable need for a couple diffrent systems, two maybe, but right now I have 4 computers running at home, and I run Linux on all four, but one dual boots into NT. I haven't found a need to have more than Linux and NT.

    If it's for power, I think a dual or just a more powerfull workstation (SUN, SGI, etc..) would be best. If it's just to do, why not get a few boxes and a monitor/keyboard switch (probably cheaper). Personally, I would perfer to have seperate systems, side by side, so each have thier own keyboard/mouse, and you can work on them side by side.

    The only possable thing I can think of that this might be good for is saving some desktop/workarea space. But if you need 3 or more systems, odds are you should have planned the space for them in the first place.

    I am also wondering, at what price? If it's more than three seperate systems, I would rather have them seperate anyway to reboot or maintain on them one at a time, while leaving the other ones running.

    There are a lot of "one box beowulf clusters" posts and junk here, just filling up space. I would like to read someone actually talk about a potential use for this thing, because I just don't understand it.

  • Well, you might as well rip off the compressor and tubing and install those in the computer's case. A fridge's casing is very thick because of the insulation; it'd be difficult to run the cables thru the walls.

    I was just thinking about using a car's A/C system instead. You might get the parts in a junkyard quite easily.

    ^D
  • Awesome setup. I like :-)

    Dan
  • This is a great thing for those of us who can't afford rack components, or want to convert existing boxen to a rack-like config w/o reinvesting the wheel.

    Posted by the Proteus

  • I'm part of a team of high school students building a beowulf cluster from donated equipment. Anyone want to donate a few of these? :-)
    Actually, we are working on the possibility of building our own, to hold 16 motherboards. Also possibly splicing the wires on the power supplys to run 2 nodes off of each power supply. We blew the circuit breaker 3 times at our school science fair!
    *Shameless Self Promotion*
    Bookmark http://amc.faceprint.com [faceprint.com] and read it tomorrow afternoon (the cluster in in my team-mate's car, waiting to be transported back to it's T1 line)
    *End Shameless Self Promotion*

  • SPARCplug (Score:1)

    by Tet ( 2721 )
    You can achieve a similar effect in much less space with the Ross SPARCplug. It's a complete HyperSPARC based Sparc 20 that fits in a standard 5.25" drive bay on a normal PC, running off the standard PC power supply. You can fit several of these in a standard PC tower case.

    http://www.iws-online.com/ross.html [iws-online.com]

    Sadly, I believe Ross have now gone out of business (however, this means that you should be able to pick up a SPARCplug pretty cheaply :-)

    Rumours are that someone (Stellar Performance?) is selling clusters of these in a beowulf-like system.

  • >>Why not just put the mobos in the fridge and use it as a rack? =-) OC them machines...

    I'd stick a dual OC'd Celeron in the Freezer :) Turn the Humidty down and drill some holes so I can run wrires (Power, NIC, KB/Mouse, and video). I'm screwed if there's a power outage and freezer thaws :(

  • Funny, That roughly adds up to three mid-tower cases side-by side. The latter is probably cheaper too.

    It seems like the worst of both worlds. Unless it comes with a built-in keyboard tray and monitor pedestal.

    I would personally like to see a case with the drive bays and the expansion slots both in front. I'm sure it would be too expensive to bother with though.

  • You don't need multiple IPs

    OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and probably NetBSD all do network address translation through use of the 'natd' daemon. I have not used it as my linux IP-MASQ works and I did have the time to mess with it.

    For OpenBSD atleast you do not have to recompile the kernel for NAT, firewall, and gateway type support. The GENERIC kernel has all that you need. A good incentive to switch over is the size of the OpenBSD kernel seems to be about half that of the linux kernel. It also seems to run faster on my 386dx25 8MB ram then a modern linux kernel. This is an important consideration for small, slow machines.

    I like the idea of a multiple cpu case like this. I would like to put my server and firewall into one box. This looks like a less expensive solution then rack mounts for small numbers of cpus.

  • doing a traceroute for me shows that very little, but some traffic is making it across the pond, but i can't even ping the www.siamese.co.uk....
  • I've been looking for something like this for a very long time now. Imagine couple it with a switchbox. "on A is alpha linux, on B is Intel linux, and on C is Beos" heheh... or for those who like the distro wars "On A is debian, on B is redhat, and on c is slackware." heheh... Gotta love that!
  • Umm. There's very little information on this project here. But is it possably VNC repackaged? or is it something else? I would imagine it's something else for the price. but then why the name? maybe VNC bundled with something else?

    One other thing what's up with all the renderings of the cases? why no pictures? REAL pictures I mean.

  • Wires (Score:1)

    by dvdeug ( 5033 )
    One use I have for a case like this, is so I can have a stable server (running OpenBSD) w/o moniter or keyboard and telnet to it from the Linux box (which displays the unstablity of any system constantly being tinkered with.) Only thing the OpenBSD box would need is a connection to the Internet and the power, both of which should be effectively shared with the Linux box. Shouldn't be that hard to set up Linux & OpenBSD so Linux goes through the OpenBSD box for any net connection, should it?
  • Don't throw out that refrigerator just yet - after all, what will you keep your beer in?

    I have a 19" rack that fits perfectly (sideways) in my closet, with three computers, and plenty of room for more. Plenty of cable room at the back, and plenty of room to slide cases in and out (just make sure you get a rack without sides).

    The best part? The rack itself was free! (though the cases were $$$) I simply asked around to some of my dad's ham-radio buddies and sure enough, one of them had a very nice rack collecting dust.

    Anyone out there have a used rackmount case? Email me!

    Dream
  • if you read the 8-pack apge they meantion using it for a linux cluster, although imho the tux is just there to get them slashdotted :)

    - MbM

  • Wires (Score:1)

    by Cynic ( 9633 )
    My nice tangle of wires from 2 computers in separate places would be even more tangled with 3 computers all in one place, I fear. They do look really nice, however, and I can see these selling better in corporate settings where they haven't (for some reason) set up racks.

  • Case? (Score:1)

    by pyg ( 10303 )
    We don't need no steenkin' cases for just three boards. Check this [svsu.edu] out.

    --oink
  • This is a submission that didn't make it to /.. CNN has an article on this Internet 'fridge [cnn.com] that tracks your supplies with bar codes. Read the article for more info.
    ~afniv
    "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
  • There should be buttons available to sites that can handle it. "This site is Slashdot proof". Hmm... I wonder if my schools server is slashdot proof. Click on my homepage url. I'll see if the bitch to me.

    Anyway, related to the cases, having a rack would be cooler. It looks much more threatening.
  • Hey tacoman! I have a 72inch tall 19wide rack on wheels with removable side panels, and a rear door.
    and a Texas Micro AT 19" rack case (it'll only mount 3 drives in it so floppy,cd,and hdd is it) that will hold a baby at board (ATX will never ever fit) and some funky panels that have lots of blinkey lights and meters.. I'll trade ya for something you might have lying around ...

    I'm trying to get rid of my ISP business (Ok I got rid of it but I still have this 19 inch rack looking at me! at least I sold the 28.8 modem pool!)
  • Check microway site [microway.com]. As usually one oldest company to support linux is one of the best here. Two alfas in one box. They call it biputer.
  • Sucks as a cluster interconnect. You can do factor
    of 100 better with something like Myrinet unstead
    of Gigabit Ether for about the same money.
  • Try it. Watch the mobo's short out when drops of water start condensing on them. One of the biggest problems with supercooling a system is that it starts condensing water on it. You either need to *really* dehumidify the air, or (this is a bad idea) coat the board in some kind of water-insulating thermally conductive material. Of course, this would make any upgrades to the system virtually impossible. Can you imagine what a mobo would look like covered in spray-on polyurethane foam? Weird...
  • So I can't order one and get one tomorrow. That's what's called vaporware. I thought.
    When I've heard/read that term used, it's been in reference either to products that are initially promised far before their actual dates of completion/shipping, or projects that are never actually completed. So, if a year passes and you still can't get one, I'd call that vaporware.

    jargon.txt definition [tuxedo.org]

  • Now THAT would be sweet. Although, I'd prefer to start small, and just use one of those mini-refrigerators. One of those should be able to hold plenty of hardware for me (Not too little, not too much ... jusssst right.)

    Then, slap in a few mutli-processor MOBOs, a couple GBs of RAM, a few TBs of disk, and you got yourself one kickass Q3 and/or Linux server, or a mediocre NT server.
  • I'd be more inclined to throw out the stove than the fridge. :-)
  • A half size, open on top, freezer would work excellent, if you could find a way to not have to worry about the condensation.. Methinks sealing the whole system in plastic wrap and dropping it in a freezer would work dandy. Have to vacuum seal it, to make sure all the humidity is out of the inside, but hey.. if you've got an old freezer lying around.

  • Even with 3 computers in 1 case, it cannot stand up to the mighty /. effect. :)
  • Stove... stove...

    Oh Yeah!.. That thing I used last year when my microwave died..

    As an aside, a couple of years ago, my roomates and I moved our computers into the kitchen (not like we really needed a kitchen table). It was the ultimate in geek convience. You could scoot the chair between the computers, the microwave, and the fridge without breaking a sweat..

  • Shouldn't be that hard to set up Linux & OpenBSD so Linux goes through the OpenBSD box for any net connection, should it?

    The easy way is to just use route and set the BSD box to be the gateway for the Linux machine. This will only work if you can register your Linux box for a separate IP though. To do this with only one IP address you'll need to do IP Masquerading. I don't know if OpenBSD does ip-masq or not. Linux does!

    -sunking

  • Wires (Score:1)

    by skullY ( 23384 )
    I don't know if OpenBSD does ip-masq or not.

    It does, but the non-linux world calls it NAT (Network Address Translation). Both fbsd and obsd have NAT capabilities, although I'm not sure how well it works as I haven't tried it yet. You can even get NAT for 95 and MacOS.
  • Why not just put the mobos in the fridge and use it as a rack? =-) OC them machines...
  • Jeez...

  • Wires (Score:1)

    by quux26 ( 27287 )
    Say, I have a 166MMX Cyrix (stop laughing), a Sparc1+ coming in this friday, and I'm quite sure I'll have two AMDK6-300's in shortly. What is the best way to manage such things? Anyone have any good links for rack mounts?
  • I was just suggesting this yesterday to a friend. I'm thinking about getting a small dorm-style fridge and just cracking it and piping the thermometer and the cooling to the unit - sealing it up nice-nice and letting it rock. =)
  • My double oven opening will just about (with shims) accomodate a 19 inch rack. The fridge still keeps the beer cold.

  • Sweet! (Score:1)

    by Lotek ( 29809 )
    One-box Beowulf system, anyone?

    Lotek---

  • Sweet! (Score:1)

    by Lotek ( 29809 )
    Not me!

    Since becoming a Professional Web Designer(tm) I immediately stopped updating my crappy website.

    That was two years ago.

    No Pay, No Play. heh

    Lotek---

  • TVNC? (Score:1)

    by hasse ( 30390 )
    They name Siamese comes from the fact that they started making Amiga/PC boxes where the Amiga was networked to the Windows PC and utilized it's graphic card.
  • Heck, install the rack in your refrigerator. Liquid-cooled computing. Really useful for those tropical hackers. OTOH, I've already seen a demo of a fridge with a built-in screen and computer--so you can keep track of what you need to buy. I don't see what advantage it has over a mag-mount whiteboard, though.
  • That damn site had shown major /.effect...lag...

    So, the question is...was Tux there to draw us Linux lovers in?? because I founmd nothing on Linux there...but I gave up quickly...what did y`all find?
  • Does this have ANYTHING to do with my msg?
    I can't see it. The only thing that I see is that this is the second time that /. posts an article about enclosures (cases) that do not exist yet. So I can't order one and get one tomorrow.
    That's what's called vaporware. I thought.

    Breace.
  • What's the business with all these Vaporware enclosures on /. lately?

    Breace.
  • I've tested this, a good heatsink will out do fridge any day. While a fridge can get cold, it's not designed to deal with large amounts of heat. Once it cools down, the insulation keeps the incoming heat down to only a few watts, a hopped up PC puts out 40 to 70+ watts, exceeding the fridge's capacity and causing it to turn into an oven.
  • Yeah, but the freon would be a bit expensive. Figure $25.00 a pound for two or three pounds. I think the fridge idea is better. the fridge's insulation is soft; running wires/tubes would be no problem.
  • I love all the graphical pictures of what it will look like.. trouble is - no photos! Makes me wonder if this is an idea in the making still, or if they've even bothered to build a prototype. Personally, I'll stick w/ rack mount.
  • I think we are going to need to replace the kitchen this summer to fit all the hardware :(

    Ahhh.. the woes of a geek.

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