Low power computing: NorhTec MicroClient
My desktop computer at home is a power hungry beast. It uses a 400W power supply, and has four fans that are constantly spinning. It was always on and made a bunch of noise. I decided to purchase an inexpensive replacement that would run silent and used minimal power.
Purchase
I did some google research and discovered NorhTec. They have a couple of different varieties of low-power computers, but I decided to get the MicroClient because it was the least expensive option.
NorhTec seems to be a pretty small outfit; the ordering process and status checking required communication with a real life human being. It had been a while since I had to order computer parts in this way..
All in all, it took about two weeks to order and receive the unit at a total cost of $366.
Ordered products are given below: PID, Product Name, Qty ---------------------------------------- A3-3C, MicroClient w. hard drive / audio, 1 = $ 295(with audio) Shipping cost (UPS) =$71 Total : $366
The shipping costs were higher than I expected, but I received the unit within two days of shipping from Thailand.
Usage
The unit is pretty cool looking (it reminds me of an amp that I would have put in with a car stereo) and is just as small as the picture suggests. It came completely blank, so I needed to load an OS onto it. I chose debian sarge, since I have familiarity with it. Since the only inputs to the device are usb and serial, I decided to use an external usb cd-r/rw drive to install debian. I changed the bios so that the drive would be used as a boot device and off I went. The install took a good amount of time (1-2 hours) but was painless; the installer recognized everything without exception.
The unit is now sitting in the same place that my old honker was sitting and has been running well ever since. It is operating as a print server, tor server, network traffic logger (ntop) and website browser for guests. While it isn't lightning fast for GUI operations, it is functional. Server-type (non-gui) processes run very well and interaction via ssh is zippy.
MicroClient
Thank you very much for highlighting the MicroClient. Most of customers are companies that integrate our microservers and microclients into customized cabients and applications. Because of this, we do not often sell single units other than for evaluation. This is why the shipping costs seem high.
We are glad to install many linux distributions onto our units. We have installed Fedora, Whitebox, Damn Small Linux, Mepis, Peanut, IPCop and other distributions for our customers.
We are working on and will soon have an even less expensive version of the MicroClient -- the MicroClient Jr. This is designed primarily for signage and thin clients.
The version you have uses the SiS550LV. This is a very low power chip that has 3 IUs running at 200 Mhz each. The resulting performance on I/O is very good -- similar to a 600 Mhz Pentium. The system with hard disk draws less than 10 watts. The MicroClient Jr. will use the standard SiS550 and will have 3 IUs running at 166Mhz. Our goal is to get to a sub $200 USD price with hard disk in 1000 quantity.
Our best selling product is the MicorServer High Performance which uses a VIA Eden Chip at 677Mhz or 1Ghz. We have sold over 12,000 of these units. We are coming out with a C7 based 1.2 Ghz UltraClient which will be the same size as our existing MicroClient and HyperClients.
In addition to Micro sized computers, we also build specialized fanless systems such as fanless kiosks, inlcuding a battery operated Kiosk/POS that can run 18 hours on batteries.
MicroClient Jr.
Thanks for the heads up on your time to get one of these. My company purchased 2 about a week ago and the only confirmation was an e-mail that said the order was in their system. These things are begging to be used as PC repair tools. Load up partition management or data recovery tools or virus scanners. Can't wait to see it work.