Intense PC 2 Unboxing and Review

I run a server at home. This is not surprising seeing as I am in the Information Technology industry. What I don't like is paying the electricity to run a server 24/7. Because of this I have been keen to get my hands on an Intense PC 2 ever since they were first announced.

The Intense PC 2 or IPC2 is a low powered computer the size of a box of savory biscuits.
If you compare its specifications to any other modern PC you would not be overly impressed. It is a standard Intel box with all the bells and whistles. What makes this beauty different is its power related to its size. Also, the IPC2 doesn't have any fans. As if those two features weren't enough, it only drinks 15 watts of power.

I'm not going to show too many details here because the manufacturer, CompuLab, can do that.

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting...

I contacted CompuLab when the IPC2 was first available for order and they replied stating that there would be a twelve week waiting period for a pre-order. OK, I don't like to wait but for this piece of engineering genius I suppose I will have to.

Zoom ahead twelve weeks and one day and last night I got my first IPC2 in the mail.   I had ordered an Intense PC 2 i7 Barebone which is the top of the line with no memory or hard disk supplied.

Once I got the device out of the box I installed the maximum 16GB of Kingston DDR3L low power RAM and a Samsung 512GB SSD PRO 840 Series hard disk drive.

Unboxing

After removing the delivery packaging I was surprised at the lack of marketing on the box itself. It is probably a good choice for a box that gets thrown in the bin once opened.

The only information on the box.

Inside the outer box was the instruction manual available from the website.

The included items below are the power brick and cable, HDMI to DVI adapter, COM mini port to 9 PIN adapter, Audio Cable, two WiFi Antennas, and a pack of screws and feet.

The inner box containing the IPC2.

And there she is. Quite heavy which is not surprising because of the amount of goodness jammed into it.

Front panel.

Back panel.

After taking out one screw the bottom cover slides out.

Two SODIMMs can be inserted on the right and just under my thumb is the SATA hard disk socket. The HDD gets screwed onto the cover plate above. An mSATA  drive could be used on the left as you can see.

Once I had the RAM and the hard disk installed the system booted up in seconds. I have installed Windows Server 2012 R2 to run Hyper-V for hosting all of my home virtual machines. I am currently hosting 11 virtual machines on this little power house. I went with Windows rather than Linux because this machine is also being used as an information station for the kids with a large touch screen monitor. I have tried Gnome with this monitor and was not happy with the touch support. Who would have thought the metro interface could come in handy?

Here is the final stand-up workstation with Audio Engine A5+ speakers, Logitech Wireless Combo MK270 mouse and keyboard, Dell 23 Touch Screen P2314T monitor on a Dell MSA14 Single Monitor Arm Stand. Also in the picture is my Bose SoundLink Mini bluetooth speaker. You can see the IPC2 on top of the right hand speaker. I will be getting a VESA mount for the IPC2 so I can screw it to the back of the sideboard.

Opinion

I am very impressed with the build quality of the Intense PC 2.  I haven't run any benchmarks against the machine but my impressions are that the performance is extremely good considering it is only using 15 watts of power. Here are the benchmarks from CompuLabs site.   I have a mail server running as a virtual machine and the response on this machine is streets ahead of the old first generation i7 server I had.

I was also very pleasantly surprised to feel the temperature of this device. With around 30% CPU utilization for an hour (Windows Update had a bug causing this) it felt like the warmth you would get from your significant others hand on a steamy date.

If this little device has some longevity, which is yet to be seen, I will no longer buy machines that have fans on them. CompuLab may have just won themselves a long term evangelistic customer. If any of my future web projects take off, I will scale out using these little puppies.

Be aware if you are wanting to order an IPC2 you may still have to wait for supply as of July 2014. I don't know how long you will be waiting. A friend of mine at work is ordering one today because of my favorable impressions.

The waiting is over. If you order now you will most likely get a package in a week.

Remotely Connect to Hyper-V with Hyper-V Manager

On Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 you can install the Hyper-V Management Console and use it to connect to a server or client running Hyper-V Services.

Microsoft has the basic configurations covered at this address;
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj647788.aspx

There is a rather important detail missing though. To connect to the Hyper-V Service running on a different machine, you need to run the Hyper-V Manager using a local account.

Now if you are like me you are thinking to yourself "I am using my local account!" Well you may not be. If you chose to use a Microsoft account when you installed Windows 8, then you are not using a local account.

So make sure you have a local administrative account on both the Hyper-V Server and the Remote Management machine.   Hold down the Shift key and right click the Hyper-V Manager link and select to "Run as different user" and use your local account.

Have a read through the community comments on the bottom of the Technet page for more details.

Export Hyper-V Virtual Machine to a File Share in a Workgroup

I have a number of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V hosts that are not members of a Domain.
To export the Virtual Machines to a File Server we need to authenticate the System service account to the File Server before the Hyper-V Management Service can access the shares. I found this neat trick on Microsoft's Technet Forum which worked wonderfully using PSExec;


1. Open an elevated command prompt: Click start, type CMD, and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter, then accept the UAC dialog (if applicable).

2. Run:
 psexec.exe \\<localServerName> /s cmd.exe
 This will provide you with a new command prompt, but it will instead run under the SYSTEM context, instead of your user context.

3. Run:
 net use \\<remoteServerName>\<sharename> /user:<domain>\<userName> <password>
 This authenticates the SYSTEM account to the share you want to export to.  
 As an example, the line could look like: "net use \\server2\c$ /user:mydomain\Administrator MyAw3s0m3Pwd"

4. Return to the Hyper-V MMC, and try your export again.  It should work now.

5. When you're done, use:
 net use \\<remoteServerName>\<sharename> /delete
 This revokes the credentials from the SYSTEM account.  Alternatively, you could reboot.

6. Type exit, press enter.  You've dropped back to the original command prompt.  Type exit and press enter again, or simply close the window.



This is not a process you would want to perform for a nightly backup, but as a once off it does the trick.