TP600e as a file/print Server

[schen]

I've recently acquired a 600e (one of the $40 ones that Dark Savant sold), so I've been having a good time playing around with it and reliving the joys of having a ThinkPad that feels like it was carved out of one piece. So far, I'm really just in the process of acquiring parts to get it upgraded such as more RAM, CD-ROM, etc. In the meantime though, I've started thinking about what I would ultimately do with it. Of course, I can do what most folks do with it (internet/email station), but I've started thinking about other possibilities as well. Therefore, I'm decided to ask the forum for suggestions and comments to an idea.

What about connecting it to a Selectadock III, putting in a (relatively) large HDD, attach a printer and have the 600 run as the front-end of a server. I've done a search on using the Selectadocks, but really haven't come up with very many useful comments relating to my idea. Also, the current machine is running W98SE which is fine for a machine of it's spec as a "stand-alone", but I'm not certain that it's the best option for a server, so I'm definitely considering Linux (I have a current copies of Ubuntu and Red Hat on hand) as well.

I'm just thinking that it would be an interesting project for an "extra" machine. My almost 4 year old isn't really quite ready for it yet, so my imagination is running rampant.

Has anyone done something like this? Any comments and thoughts would be welcome and appreciated.

[unrortit]

win 98se,me works good on the dock,i managed to rig up a qlogic
lvd adapter with a 10k cheetah drive and dual boot it from the laptops or dock scsi drive no sweat,i also tried cmd ata 100 ide+ raid controller and it worked just fine too,the finer aspect is the bx chipset indeed is ata 66 tolerable so it was no surprise to see sustained transfer rates from a 7.2k ata100 barra drive peak around 58mps from the dock stationed 600e!
i removed the 50pin connector ,but somehow have not found a way to disable the onboard scsi host bus from the dock(except in device manager)other than that annoyance all the other features are beaut,i found regardless what i tried it did not work on boot with the adaptec u160 lvd variants,nor lsi logic.the qla1280 is the safest
and wisest bet since its cheap ,compatable,will autoload in 2k,xp,2k3,vista,longhorn 2006 and proven to run a 15k 3 cheetah
at 72.5mps sustained speeds from the 80mps host bus which interm matches the lsi u160 variants anyway regardless of the 32bit/33mghz default host bus,so i think your on a winner there
bottom line tp600e worlds fastest laptop?
at 72.5mps i will put up my claim.
512ram all being equal regardless of mghz.
a pc is only as fast as its most prominent bottle neck
hard disc data retreival rate.
512mb ram and 4200 rpm in a dual core machine,lets see which is faster.