[PLUG] Small hardened server

[Quentin Hartman]

On 10/1/07, Aaron Burt <aaron at bavariati.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Oct 01, 2007 at 07:13:36PM -0700, Kris wrote:
> > Anyone know if I might find a device that:
> >  * Is small
> >  * Preferably fanless, but not a requirement
> >  * Two free 32-bit PCI slots
> >  * Redundant 110V power supply
> >  * Flash capable (CF, PATA port)
>
> Two 32-bit slots might be a deal-killer here.



Not a deal killer. Most (all?) of the Mini-ITX boards on the market work
just fine with dual-slot PCI risers. Remember that PCI is a bus, so just
because there is only one slot on the board, that doesn't mean it's all you
can use.

I'd suggest a fanless mini-ITX board like this one:
http://www.logicsupply.com/products/cn10000eg
With a riser like this one: http://www.logicsupply.com/products/ext_pcig
With a power supply like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817104158

I like the idea of powering the thing from redundant wall-wart setup, though
as Aaron suggested, I don't know of anything OTS that can do that. I too
question whether this is strictly required for E911. I've been closely
involved in two E911 telecom installations and I don't recall any of the
equipment used in them having redundant power. They had to be on a UPS, but
did not have to be redundant. These projects were several years ago though,
so the rules may have changed.

Some gotchas:
-All of the mini-itx board I've seen that have built-in CF slots _cannot_
boot from them. I have this feeling that there is one that came out recently
or is coming out soon that has bootable CF, but I'm not sure. So, unless the
specs on the board you find specifically says it can boot from CF, assume
you'll be booting some other way. I've run a couple machines off of IDE->CF
adapters and they work fine.
-Make sure you get "industrial" flash so it has extra long cell life. You
don't want to have to be swapping flash cards after a couple years of use.
-Are you sure that this will be enough horsepower? Since you're looking for
E911 compliance, that implies to me that you are likely doing this for a
larger installation. Is that true? If so, something like
http://www.logicsupply.com/products/ms_7265 will give you substantially more
horsepower, but still keep power consumption down. You can also go with
faster VIA based systems, which will draw less power than the Core machine,
but still not be quite as fast. Maybea good middle ground.
-Redundant power supplies are designed for servers, which means they will be
_loud_.

-- 
-Regards-

-Quentin Hartman-