When less is more: the basics of physicalization

November 24th, 2009

The word “physicalization” is ten months old. This January, Rackable Systems launched a strange line of servers which defied all the conventional wisdom of server design by disaggregating larger servers into many smaller ones based on consumer parts, and in the process lowering power and performance density. Ars, among others, expressed skepticism over the strange design decisions, but launches from other major vendors suggest that, for some market segments, the server space is taking a turn in a novel new direction. Ars has covered this trend before, but we now take a more detailed look at it, with a survey of available physicalization offerings, analysis of the reasons for their adoption, and some predictions about the future.