Ultra SFF Devices

[stuartp44]

We are currently having a extension built onto our school and due to this it is having new equipment put into it. Part of this new equipment is a new system that utilises a small form factor (Nothing bigger than a standard mouse mat size). However i am getting shivers down my back on there future as small components never equal to the runtime of a standard size. The major components that worry me are the ATOM processor and laptop hard drives, as in the past we always find as the older they get the slower they get. To add insult to injury we are having 4 computers running off a small switch located in the bank of these computers which again causes bottlenecks at the uplink.

 

What I am asking is for either a settling reassurance that we wont have issues cause technology has moved on since I got my experience within this equipment and that the computer with 2gb ram and windows 7, running on a atom processor and a laptop HDD will suffice for 300+ users prospectively accessing it. Or will I guarantee I am going to get problems which at the moment I recon I will do.

 

If someone could share there experience with similar type of equipment that would be great, however every time I seem to say something about this subject 'we are going to have a problems' i get told everything is going to be ok, however this product is a new concept and we will be the first to use it.

Edited January 6, 2011 by stuartp44

[jamesfed]

In the past we have bought a number of SFF PCs like these from Pars - PARS Technology Product Description

They run fine with both Windows XP and 7 for admin work (SIMS/Word/Emails ect) but keep in mind that modern PCs main bottle necks are at the speed at which they can access data (very rarely at the processor it's self) so keep an eye out for 4200rpm and 5400rpms hard drives (try to stick to 7200) and expecily 667mhz RAM (yes these Pars ones have 667 but I wasn't the one making the decisions on them).

 

Personaly I wouldn't use any kind of PC like this in a Classroom enviroment with students though - aditional applications loading in the background and running larger programs will only bring down such PCs. If you do for whatever reason want to move to SFF devices then maybe consider thin clients and VDI instead.

[glennda]

I have about 100 HP dc7800 USFF - they are not the best of machines speed wise but depends what you are running them for (great for xibo boxes hidden in ceilings!) - don't tend to have failures of them ( I think we have one with a dodgy nic so HP swapped out). Ours are slightly more powerful then the ones you are talking about core 2 duo i think. Havn't run win 7 on them yet but they should work okay.

 

But I don't really like them (apart from there Xibo use!) - I'm more for mini-tower sized pc's.

[dhicks]

The major components that worry me are the ATOM processor and laptop hard drives, as in the past we always find as the older they get the slower they get.

 

We seem to be getting on well with our Acer Revos, and those are the model that is a couple of years old now. I think the newer ones use the latest dual-core Atom processors and have a little bit more oompf and graphical performance, making them really very suitible for general use in a school. Nettops have been around for a while now, they should be good and stable (and, in many cases, very affordable - those Acers cost us under £200 each).

 

I can't, of course, give you any assurance that some non-specific hardware will run whatever software you want to use in whatever manner you expect, although I'd point out that the people you need to get assurances off of are the people installing the hardware. Plain, old-fashioned hardware failure is probably best dealt with by have a few hot spares around, so if one machine conks out you can get another up and running right away.

 

I don't think I've seen laptop harddrives get physically slower, although I've seen plenty of Windows laptops slow to a crawl due to malware / updates / drivers, etc. You could always budget for new drives / SSDs after a year or two.

 

To add insult to injury we are having 4 computers running off a small switch located in the bank of these computers which again causes bottlenecks at the uplink.

 

Sorry, do you mean you've got 4 computers in a larger bank of machines running off their own four-port switch for some reason? Could they not just install a big enough main switch in the first place?

 

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David Hicks

[3s-gtech]

No is a very interesting time for uSFF PCs - with AMD's Fusion products have come some powerful mini ITX boards featuring dual-core 1.6GHz Zacate processors with onboard HD6310 graphics. These are in a different league to Atom. The boards should be shipping shortly, so expect to find products from OEMs soon - shouldn't be pricey either.

[Butuz]

SFF Atom type PC combined with 4GB ram and a solid state laptop drive are what I am looking at for the future. IMHO the SSD drive makes or breaks it as the usual 2.5" 5400/7200rpm drives are just soo slooooow they drag the rest of the PC down.

 

Butuz

[jamesfed]

SFF Atom type PC combined with 4GB ram and a solid state laptop drive are what I am looking at for the future. IMHO the SSD drive makes or breaks it as the usual 2.5" 5400/7200rpm drives are just soo slooooow they drag the rest of the PC down.

 

Butuz

 

To right on the SSD front - our current VDI server uses 15,000rpm drives but for any future ones we are more than happy to go with SSDs to get that extra oomph that HDDs could never provide.

[stuartp44]

Thanks everyone for the reply's, at least i am not alone. Explaining this to management got me no where. We are installing about a 100 of these without testing them, i am really worried for the future of them. Oh well what am i a technician! my expertise is not applicable here :S or thats what i feel anyway.

[dhicks]

Thanks everyone for the reply's, at least i am not alone.

 

Most of the comments above seemed pretty positive, I don't think you'll have too much to worry about. Maybe, as pointed out in a couple of posts above, an SSD might do better over a standard hardddrive if that's possible, and you might struggle to run full-screen video editing or similar, but otherwise it sounds like you have some decent enough machines on the way.

 

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David Hicks

[brooker101]

Ergo Micro PC excellent for footprint and future proofing. Looks like it will take i3, i5 and i7 which is unusual for a PC this size. They usually are Atom based processors.

[dhicks]

Ergo Micro PC excellent for footprint and future proofing.

 

I was impressed at BETT by VeryPC's Broadleaf PC - small form factor, but big enough to fit a slim CD/DVD drive in. Very low power, very quiet (although it's difficult to tell in a showroom at BETT - anyone got a classroom full of 30 of these and can give us an idea how loudly they run?). They take Core i3 and i5 I think, not i7, but that really should be enough for classroom use. The chap on the stand calimed they could trace the manufacturing process right back to the mining and smelting of the aluminium ore used for the cases, and claimed something like an 80% reduced embodied carbon footprint when compared with average desktop machines.

 

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David Hicks

[Achandler]

We use a lot of the Acer Veriton L400, mainly because they come with real processors and with run Windows 7 Enterprise here. We do have Asus efforts that are Aton based (bought by a teacher) and to be honest we found them nothing short of completely useless.

 

There are also Lenovo ultra small form factors, and they probably have a 3 year warranty (most Lenovo stuff does).

 

As for replacing small parts believe it or not but some even have a low profile PCI slot in them, so you could even put a new graphics/ sound or network card in one should it break! I have never done it but it is possible. We've actually been really impressed with our Acer's so far (had some about a year) and not one has gone wrong *touches wood*

[SpuffMonkey]

I was impressed at BETT by VeryPC's Broadleaf PC - small form factor, but big enough to fit a slim CD/DVD drive in. Very low power, very quiet (although it's difficult to tell in a showroom at BETT - anyone got a classroom full of 30 of these and can give us an idea how loudly they run?). They take Core i3 and i5 I think, not i7, but that really should be enough for classroom use. The chap on the stand calimed they could trace the manufacturing process right back to the mining and smelting of the aluminium ore used for the cases, and claimed something like an 80% reduced embodied carbon footprint when compared with average desktop machines.

 

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David Hicks

 

Did you get any indicative pricing on the Broadleaf's - they look good from the website.

[dhicks]

Did you get any indicative pricing on the Broadleaf's

 

I did, but instantly forgot it - £500-ish?

 

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David Hicks