Quad-core Xeon laptop gets 1.5TB storage

Eurocom, the company that released a quad-core Xeon laptop in 2007, has announced a revamp that includes an upgradeable motherboard and up to 1.5TB (terabytes) of on-board storage.

The upgrade also includes an Nvidia 9800GTX graphics card with 1GB of RAM. The company plans a further revamp later this year, with a 3TB model made possible by doubling the number of hard drives to six, said Eurocom president Marc Bialic on Tuesday. At that time, the product is also likely to swap to Intel's forthcoming quad-core Xeon for mobile systems. Currently it uses a standard server Xeon, which helps account for the relatively short battery life of one hour.

Dubbed the Eurocom D901C Phantom-X, the laptop comes with an Intel Xeon quad-core X3360 processor running at 2.83GHz with 12MB of L2 cache. It has a built-in UPS, gigabit Ethernet port on-board, a 17-inch display and 8GB of DDR-800 RAM. The hard drives are set up to support Raid 0, Raid 1 or Raid 5.

Naturally these features take their toll on portability: the Phantom-X measures 15.8 inches wide by 11.9 inches deep by two inches thick. It weighs just shy of 12lb, according to Eurocom. Pricing for the base configuration starts at around $2,700 (£1,390).

The Phantom-X is Eurocom's effort to establish a new category of laptop — the "mobile server". "Software and/or database developers, training centres, military personnel, emergency-relief organisations and service organisations that must frequently travel yet need access to powerful computing are the core target," said Eurocom.