get a cheap 15" TFT and small keyboard I suggest. You could still cram this all into a cupboard probably

laptops arent designed for 24/7 operation.

A better solution is to buy a SFF PC for this kind of job. I have a Dell SX280 PC which is the size of a telephone directory, it has standard DDR2 ram and full sized SATA hard disk, currently 2.5Gb of RAM and 320Gb disk and P4 3.2 processor. Im considering replacing it as I want something 64 bit to run VMware stuff, but have had it running a whole year with no problems and I am out of the country so I RDP or use Logmein to connect to it :o)