The mini-itx form factor has come a long way since the days when it was a mere hobbyist product confined to the back of the computer fair and hovered over by the geek and the nerd of us. It was going to be a rough ride to establish it as useful in the house because when first developed it required an entirely new form of motherboard that would fit this new size. At the time, motherboards were huge beasts that needed all that space to fit the inevitable shopping-list of extra bits that would make their way from the computer store to the PC.
The huge size of these cases meant that even if had just modest requirements for your system (say you wanted a PC to run some software quietly in the background) then you had to have a huge system anyway. Most of it was full of air but that didn't matter, you needed the motherboard and the case and they were designed to house a huge amount of equipment.
So, the mini-itx form factor came to our rescue and we now have systems that are tiny by comparison to their older cousins. If you needed multiple PCs to run software, you can now easily fit them all into a racking system and save some of that valuable server room space.
Obviously there are other uses for these versatile little beasties beyond running the account's month end and they have since found themselves into a wide array of applications from vehicle uses (engine management for example) through to ship-board systems. Coupled with the fact that more components are being embedded into the motherboard (including graphics, memory and controllers) and you have a neat package that could be used in challenging environments for communications, tracking and navigation, data control and CCTV.
Obviously there was the huge problem of the operating system needed to handle the basics of the system and this has also been addressed with the use of Windows Embedded. This is an operating system on a chip and requires no hard disk to operate. It's an instant-boot system that enables you to use software that would not be available in normal use.
This obviously keeps costs down too as Windows-based software running on standard hardware (standard in that it works in the same way as normal size equipment) means there is already a huge pool of developers waiting to create the software you need.
So if you want to keep space usage and costs to a minimum, consider a mini-itx based system for you next upgrade.
Andy Calloway is the online marketing director at Calloway Green Ltd, a website design and optimisation company based in Wolverhampton in the UK. Calloway Green take fantastic website design and turn it into a marketable and usable product that will actually make you money. They specialise in Web Design Birmingham for West Midlands based organisations that are looking to sell their products to a wide audience.
The company also has a wide range of SEO training courses available and are able to help companies that are looking to train their key staff in order to promote themselves online. We can also help you with your new career.
Andy Calloway
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andy_Calloway
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5721501
No comments:
Post a Comment