Mobile Servers Save Energy, Add Capacity

Sun Microsystems has a solution for the booming demand for network space, and as a bonus, it lowers energy use: packing servers into steel shipping containers that can be parked wherever they're needed. It's called Project Blackbox, and Sun says it reduces power consumption by 20%. The giant 20-foot boxes sell for $500,000 a pop.

Stanford is the first customer to test the giant container, using it to help run the school's particle accelerator. It will store 252 servers and be kept in a parking lot, connected to a 4-mega watt power supply— enough to fuel a town of 2,500 people. One big worry: A determined thief could just drive a box away. (More shipping container stories.)