[ltp] ThinkPads as servers.

[Michelle Klein-Hass]

On Thursday 09 December 2004 01:59 pm, Michael Z Daryabeygi wrote:

> Why would you use a laptop as a server?

OK, there are several reasons.

1.) Power consumption. A laptop plugged in 24/7 sucks as much or less juice 
than an EPIA Mini-ITX box.

2.) Cheapness. Low-end laptops that can do the job (anything from a ThinkPad 
365 on up as far as I'm concerned) can be had for a song now. I was actually 
*given* the headless TP 570 I'm going to turn into a web server, but my buddy 
Chad Page bought a lot of 10 of them for $40/ea. Try buying an EPIA Mini-ITX 
box for $40. He's got an extra so I'm going to buy it from him so I can turn 
it into a router/firewall/Intrusion Detection system/honeypot.

3.) The standard Geek reason: Because you can!

> Why not just get one of those cute little square front boxes that hardly
> take up any space.  You can attach a monitor to do setup but on a
> regular basis you could leave the monitor.keyboard detached and remote
> into the box from your laptop.

Because these TP 570s are headless (the seller decided he could get more $$$ 
parting them out than selling them whole, the lousy bastard) I will be able 
to do one more thing with these decapitated beauties: my husband will be 
building me a wood rack so that the machines can be racked up on edge like a 
plate in a dish rack. I'm going to use the power supplies as ballast to make 
the resulting rack less tippy. This will mean that the two machines will take 
up about a 2" by 12" footprint on the surface it ends up on. Neat huh?

I intend to completely write this up, and host the results on the web server 
machine of the pair. I'll also post a writeup on ThinkWiki as well.

Take care,
Michelle
-- 
Michelle Klein-Hass
Box 2273, Van Nuys, CA 91404-2273
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