Nothing a little bit of aluminum u-channel wouldn't fix... Did that with a little Coolermaster Elite 100. It's a stitch taller than this unit, but still pretty damn small. Fitted it with a dual NIC Supermicro ITX D525 based motherboard and a older 64GB SSD and some RAM. Solid as a rock, sucks almost zero power, and runs my VPN connection under PFSense.
They have a rack mount kit two put two of those next to each other in a 2U unit, but not 1U. Maybe they are afraid of heat buildup since they are not designed for such an environment.
I can't think of any good reason to choose one of these over an STX system. You're locked into a larger proprietary form-factor, but don't gain any functionality.
Definitely interesting. Might make a good replacement for my Sophos UTM 220 in my data center setup. That UTM 220 advertised as being capable of gigabit IPS but it tops out around 300 megabits, which is frustrating. One of these with an i3 should have no problem doing 1 gigabit. Dual i211's pretty much seals the deal. Most of these SFF boxes have crappy realtek nics which are fine for consumer use, but not ideal for anything enterprisey.
For use with old industrial/embedded/etc control systems. They're generally designed with 30 year lifespans and many use RS-232. PCs themselves don't last that long though, and a com port built into the replacement is a cleaner upgrade than a USB dongle. Early generations of USB dongles also were flakey if you needed to use the control lines instead of just spraying data. Dunno if they're better now, but bad experiences years ago probably have a significant chunk of the market unwilling to consider anything without one now.
It's funny you mention the extinction of RS232, when I have to use a USB>COM adapter on my HTPC to control my Sharp TV, Denon receiver, Oppo Bluray, Pioneer SACD, Sonance Amps and god knows what else via a serial databus.
The alternative is to use iR blasters, which are vastly inferior to a databus connection that has thousands of commands and can be fully scripted without any iR 'pause' delays. Posh iR installations can actually be bidirectional (like serial) but they have even more delay. Sometimes it could take 20 second to run a scripted event between a few devices where serial is instant.
...and thats just for home theater. This thing is probably targeted at kiosks and other commercial installations where similar serial 'networking' is used, or maybe simply just for remote management.
Even modern HP servers with ELO use a RJ45 jack that is actually serial to chain them for remote management.
Serial isn't going away anytime soon. It's just so damn reliable.
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Mr Perfect - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
At that height it would fit in a single rack unit. I don't suppose they have a rackmount kit though?bill.rookard - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
Nothing a little bit of aluminum u-channel wouldn't fix... Did that with a little Coolermaster Elite 100. It's a stitch taller than this unit, but still pretty damn small. Fitted it with a dual NIC Supermicro ITX D525 based motherboard and a older 64GB SSD and some RAM. Solid as a rock, sucks almost zero power, and runs my VPN connection under PFSense.nevcairiel - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
They have a rack mount kit two put two of those next to each other in a 2U unit, but not 1U. Maybe they are afraid of heat buildup since they are not designed for such an environment.DanNeely - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
That's probably it. They'd only have about 1mm vertical clearance, which'd make the top vent holes mostly useless.edzieba - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
I can't think of any good reason to choose one of these over an STX system. You're locked into a larger proprietary form-factor, but don't gain any functionality.mammothboy - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
Seems like a great platform for a robust pfSense build.oRAirwolf - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
Definitely interesting. Might make a good replacement for my Sophos UTM 220 in my data center setup. That UTM 220 advertised as being capable of gigabit IPS but it tops out around 300 megabits, which is frustrating. One of these with an i3 should have no problem doing 1 gigabit. Dual i211's pretty much seals the deal. Most of these SFF boxes have crappy realtek nics which are fine for consumer use, but not ideal for anything enterprisey.yeeeeman - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
Can we get now an AMD version?nevcairiel - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
Whats up with the two COM ports? Those are extinct, and this now has two?DanNeely - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
For use with old industrial/embedded/etc control systems. They're generally designed with 30 year lifespans and many use RS-232. PCs themselves don't last that long though, and a com port built into the replacement is a cleaner upgrade than a USB dongle. Early generations of USB dongles also were flakey if you needed to use the control lines instead of just spraying data. Dunno if they're better now, but bad experiences years ago probably have a significant chunk of the market unwilling to consider anything without one now.Samus - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
It's funny you mention the extinction of RS232, when I have to use a USB>COM adapter on my HTPC to control my Sharp TV, Denon receiver, Oppo Bluray, Pioneer SACD, Sonance Amps and god knows what else via a serial databus.The alternative is to use iR blasters, which are vastly inferior to a databus connection that has thousands of commands and can be fully scripted without any iR 'pause' delays. Posh iR installations can actually be bidirectional (like serial) but they have even more delay. Sometimes it could take 20 second to run a scripted event between a few devices where serial is instant.
...and thats just for home theater. This thing is probably targeted at kiosks and other commercial installations where similar serial 'networking' is used, or maybe simply just for remote management.
Even modern HP servers with ELO use a RJ45 jack that is actually serial to chain them for remote management.
Serial isn't going away anytime soon. It's just so damn reliable.