Eurocom squeezes 3TB of storage into mobile workstations

by Pete Mason on 14 August 2010, 12:01

Tags: D900F Panther, Eurocom

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Laptops, RAID arrays and massive amounts of storage aren't ideas that typically go together.  Never one to let convention get in the way of a good idea, though, system-builder Eurocom has announced that it is the first company to offer laptops with over three terabytes of storage.

This feat is made possible by Seagate's latest 7,200rpm hard drives.  The range-topping models manage to fit up to 750GB into a standard 9.5mm-tall 2.5in form factor, ensuring compatibility with most portable chassis.

Of course, it takes more than just redesigned HDDs to fit this much storage into a laptop, and Eurocom has managed to engineer its notebooks to take an impressive four drives.  The D900F Panther, X8100 Leopard and upcoming X7200 Panther 2.0 can all be equipped with up to 3TB of storage in RAID 0, 1, 5 or 10 configurations.  In fact, support for taller 12.5mm z-heights means that the Panther 2.0 can support 1TB drives for a ridiculous 4TB of storage.

Being mobile workstations and servers, the systems can also be configured with a host of other high-end parts, including Intel's flagship Core i7-980X processor and Crossfire or SLI graphics solutions.

Of course, all of this performance comes at the cost of portability.  The lightest of the models weighs 4kg (8.8lbs) and requires a huge 220W PSU, and weight increases to 5.6kg (12.3lbs) for the heaviest model.  In context, this is equivalent to about five netbooks. 

No one buying these portable powerhouses will mind too much about the weight, though, and cramming that much storage into a laptop is something of a technological feat.  More details, as well as the full spec-sheets are available from Eurocom's website, where you can order the laptops straight away.



HEXUS Forums :: 5 Comments

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why bother?
Euro what?
They're pretty famous for ramming i7 into notebook fashion long before the mobile chips were available.

At the end of the day, as people have said before, this is a mobile server or similar - a phenomenally powerful desktop with a built in screen, built in UPS that's easy to transport. So there is a lot of merit in cramming in a large amount of storage.

As LAN machines go, one of these would be pretty awesome!
The laptop takes 3 drives as standard the fourth is fitted via a caddy in the DVD bay, hence you lose the DVD or Blu-Ray drive.

Personally I'd rather buy one from Kobalt Computers a UK based company that uses clevo laptops to build their own, this is called the G890 on their website, its soon to also have dual 5870s or 1 GTX480 2GB.

Eurocom are somewhat unreliable to say the least from reading other peoples reviews.

The selling point for me is the 18“ display considering I have got a 20” laptop lol.
Hmm someone needs to tell the person being interviewed @ Kobalt (video at bottom of this page: http://www.kobaltcomputers.co.uk/g890_overview.php) that RAID0 does not add data integrity, just speed :P