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Tuesday May 13, 2008
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Eurocom, a vendor of desktop-replacement notebooks, is selling its D90xC Phantom-X notebook as a mobile workstation as well as a "mobile server," TG Daily noticed.
The notebook certainly has some attributes of a server: support for multiple hard drives (three), as well as support for Windows Server 2008. But the definition of a server is somewhat fungible these days; yes, one of the criteria is the ability to run a server OS, such as Windows Server. But if anyone's interested in buying this to run as a "server" (and I'm not quite sure what you'd serve off of this) you'd be best served by calling the company and finding out what hard drives are used in this beast. While a PC hard drive can sustain periods of uninterrupted use, servers typically use enterprise-class hard drives for a reason: so that they can be run 24/7.
Wikipedia sums this up nicely: "While any 'workstation' computer can run server operating systems and server applications, a server computer usually has special features intended to make it more suitable. Distinctions often include faster processor and memory, more RAM, larger hard drives, higher reliability, redundant power supplies, redundant hard drives (RAID), compact size and shape, modular design (e.g., blade servers often used in server farms), rack or cabinet mountability, serial console redirection, etc."
Of course, this all ignores the problems of running a server off of a notebook, let alone for the few minutes it would operate in battery mode. But for about $2,500 for the base model (with an Intel Q9300 quad-core processor, 2 Gbytes of RAM, 120-Gbyte SATA hard drive, DVD burner, and 17-inch widescreen 1680x1050 panel) feel free to try it out and report back.
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