SGI is out selling a junior version of the classic shipping container that companies have taken to using for data centers.

Since it's not your ISO standard 20- or 40-foot container it won't be as easy or cheap to haul around. They don't stack neatly on each other or on their bigger brothers but SGI says the new ICE Cube Air box appeals to people who don't want to commit to the giant containers like SGI's big ISO-standard water-cooled ICE Cube.

Anyway, the eight-foot ICE Cube Air, which can house four fixed or roll-in racks, each 51U high, can scale by hitching up to four of them together side-by-side.

The company says it's already got orders for the thing which starts at $99,000 before any computing gear goes into it. It can be anybody's x86 systems and storage. SGI's not fussy although it hopes it will be its hardware.

SGI is making the boxes in Europe for the moment because it's using some energy-conscious components in the things. Later it will also make them in the US and simply import the European parts.

As the name implies ICE Cube Air is air-cooled with a third-stage evaporative cooling option satisfied by a garden hose and depending on the weather where it's going can also be air-conditioned. Normally it's supposed to fetch a power usage effectiveness (PUE) ratio of less than 1.06.

SGI's got an ISO 20-foot version of the Air container that can expand out to 80 racks, 97,920 cores and 143.36PB.