Is that a data center in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

dell-briefcase-datacenter
With word that MySpace has swapped all their hard drives for solid state drives, this “prototype” portable data center from a pioneering Dell employee may be a sign of things to come. This is a pretty marked departure from the shipping container data centers being constructed by Google, Sun, and seemingly everyone else. This datacenter-in-a-briefcase is not an actual product (yet!), but just something this guy threw together in his garage.

It’s not the kind of thing you’re going to build out the next big web application on, but this looks like a solid start from which to start building more modular data centers.

Pike has crammed two servers running dual-core, 2.5 GHz Intel processors (Harpertown), 32 GB of memory, 4 TB of disk space for storage, a power supply, a 5-port Gigabit Ethernet Switch and even some solid-state drives into a metal box. The box consumes about 325 watts, is relatively portable and provides enough performance to act as a DNS server or a data center for a small business

Via GigaOm.