What computer now?

[nickwm21]

Voice of reason here, but I really don’t want a chrome book.

Why?

I think when people hear the word chromebook they have the image of $200 bare bone, plastic cased mini budget laptop for school kids. Once you get to the $500-$700 chromebook level you get a metal case, high end OLED screen, best in class battery life machine that will have the performance to do everything an individual needs to do outside of professional level computing.

I bought my ASUS in ~2017 for <$600. I use it for what you describe. Photo editing, general googling, recipes, casting spotify to the stereo, casting pirated NHL games to the TV, docs, spreadsheets, finance, yearly taxes, netflix and other media while traveling….


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[oldnew_guy]

Why?

I think when people hear the word chromebook they have the image of $200 bare bone, plastic cased mini budget laptop for school kids. Once you get to the $500-$700 chromebook level you get a metal case, high end OLED screen, best in class battery life machine that will have the performance to do everything an individual needs to do outside of professional level computing.

I bought my ASUS in ~2017 for <$600. I use it for what you describe. Photo editing, general googling, recipes, casting spotify to the stereo, casting pirated NHL games to the TV, docs, spreadsheets, finance, yearly taxes, netflix and other media while traveling….


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

I don’t like Google and don’t want to be in their ecosystem. Just a personal choice.

[skaredshtles]

Srsly, though - I'm a Linux guy... but I would NOT recommend it to the OP.

[k2skier112]

Build your own desktops. It's not hard. You can go bespoke, or Joe Budget, like putting together a rifle rig. Buy specs.

^this

My sister works at Intel, the i7-11700k was $203
I have my sons passed down ASUS GTX1060 6gb GPU
Reusing my PSU from last build, a Corsair HX750 and an LG Blu-ray burner
I spent under $1,000, retail would be over $2k if bought from Dell or HP

[joeshek]

Why?

I think when people hear the word chromebook they have the image of $200 bare bone, plastic cased mini budget laptop for school kids. Once you get to the $500-$700 chromebook level you get a metal case, high end OLED screen, best in class battery life machine that will have the performance to do everything an individual needs to do outside of professional level computing.

I bought my ASUS in ~2017 for <$600. I use it for what you describe. Photo editing, general googling, recipes, casting spotify to the stereo, casting pirated NHL games to the TV, docs, spreadsheets, finance, yearly taxes, netflix and other media while traveling….


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

Going up in pricepoint doesn't change the ecosystem/OS.

Chrome OS is infuriating - the native applications are actually worse than the browser versions of sheets, maps, docs, etc. I find myself trying to "trick" the computer into only opening those things in chrome.

[Dantheman]

Is there a good small form factor windows desktop with a similar size to a MacMini? The size of desktops I see tends to drive me away from a conventional tower.

Thoughts on ways to manage the storage issue with a mini-Mac/small form factor desktop/laptop, a desktop external harddrive and maybe a windows and Apple household?

Dell's all-in-one offerings are pretty slick. I got one in this configuration in November and have been really happy with it.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop...3qB-ZnlghYWR94


Sounds like you're pretty invested in the Apple ecosystem, though, so leaning heavily on iCloud storage seems like the obvious solution.

[oldnew_guy]

Dell's all-in-one offerings are pretty slick. I got one in this configuration in November and have been really happy with it.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop...3qB-ZnlghYWR94


Sounds like you're pretty invested in the Apple ecosystem, though, so leaning heavily on iCloud storage seems like the obvious solution.

I would totally be interested if I wasn’t WFH with a 27 inch monitor connected to a work laptop.

[Dexter Rutecki]

I have it on good authority that Bitcoin is the worlds safest computer now. PM stalefish for details

Yeah, problem is you have to pay for it in BTC, so how will that work? No one can possibly tell you. Plus side is if you buy the BTC computer it'll be worth $80 million after all the Bitcoin is mined.

[Mustonen]

I would totally be interested if I wasn’t WFH with a 27 inch monitor connected to a work laptop.

So? Get the 27” and use it as a dual monitor setup with your laptop.

[Dantheman]

I would totally be interested if I wasn’t WFH with a 27 inch monitor connected to a work laptop.

Ah, I didn't see that in the OP. I'm not exactly sure why you asking about small desktops then, but yeah, that definitely won't work.

[Benny Profane]

Strong rumor that the new Mac mini is any day now, with an advanced M1 chip and more ports (thank god Apple has decided to go 180 on the ports issue. What were they thinking?).

As far as storage, I do not trust the cloud at all. Storage is cheap. I have two 6T drives in a housing that I duplicate after every work session. I should get a third to store off site. You never know. The whole external storage thing cost about 800 bucks. I use Carbon Copy to duplicate drives. Can be set up to do automatically.

[oldnew_guy]

Ah, I didn't see that in the OP. I'm not exactly sure why you asking about small desktops then, but yeah, that definitely won't work.

I have a smallish deal for WFH with a lot of stuff on it, so I was thinking a small form factor windows desktop, apple mini, or NUC might make sense to keep the clutter down.

[skaredshtles]

As far as storage, I do not trust the cloud at all.

OK, Boomer.

[::: :::]

Strong rumor that the new Mac mini is any day now, with an advanced M1 chip and more ports (thank god Apple has decided to go 180 on the ports issue. What were they thinking?).

As far as storage, I do not trust the cloud at all. Storage is cheap. I have two 6T drives in a housing that I duplicate after every work session. I should get a third to store off site. You never know. The whole external storage thing cost about 800 bucks. I use Carbon Copy to duplicate drives. Can be set up to do automatically.

Not sure I understand what you are using…just plug-in hard drives & CC on a manual copy?

I have what sounds to be the same setup, except it’s RAID (so no Carbon Copy**). Pricing is sim. NAS + a couple western digital Red drives. I don’t do an offsite hard drive but it would be easy enough with the existing hot swap capability…just need a third drive to do the swap (+ time to let the drives mirror)*. NAS connects to cloud overnight & updates the backup only with the data that changed during that day. Very very easy & priced well too.


* I will say Synology didn’t recommend this process when I asked, but it seems to fit into the resiliency strategy of the NAS design. IE if a drive fails, you can pull it out and replace it. Just swap that process for a good drive that you rotate offsite every week or month or whatever. (But I am not doing it since they are advising against & cuz it’s a pain to go store somewhere else on the regular.)

** CC didn’t work for me when I tried it. It would fail when it saw identical filenames in different directories, which I sometimes need for various reasons.

[Benny Profane]

OK, Boomer.

All they have to do is flip a switch, or get hacked, or go bankrupt, or, something. Poof, all gone.

[Mustonen]

All they have to do is flip a switch, or get hacked, or go bankrupt, or, something. Poof, all gone.

Sure. Your personal disaster avoidance posture is probably better than google’s, or Amazon’s, or apple’s, or Microsoft’s or…. .

Makes sense. You should definitely pay a premium to maintain your own hardware at home.

[skaredshtles]

Sure. Your personal disaster avoidance posture is probably better than google’s, or Amazon’s, or apple’s, or Microsoft’s or…. .

Makes sense. You should definitely pay a premium to maintain your own hardware at home.

Troof.

[k2skier112]

Sure. Your personal disaster avoidance posture is probably better than google’s, or Amazon’s, or apple’s, or Microsoft’s or…. .

Makes sense. You should definitely pay a premium to maintain your own hardware at home.

I've never had to do any maintenance on any of my external (portable) SSD's. I'd still have a PC to maintain so that would already be factored in

Other than access when I'm not home (or I don't bring them with me), I don't see any upside to have someone store my data...maybe I need more data to store

[Mustonen]

I've never had to do any maintenance on any of my external (portable) SSD's. I'd still have a PC to maintain so that would already be factored in

Other than access when I'm not home (or I don't bring them with me), I don't see any upside to have someone store my data...maybe I need more data to store

Buying and storing and providing an environment for and replacing = maintenance. It’s not like it needs a regular oil change, but it’s not like the stuff has no needs and no need of periodic replacement.

Upside is mostly all the reasons Benny cites as an upside to maintaining your own backup infrastructure. Which is why it struck me as ironic. Depends on the cloud, maybe, but it’s ridiculous to imagine that a home user with a couple external HDDs enjoys a similar level of protection and redundancy and security than they would if they entrusted it into a cloud storage provider. Any inclination otherwise is irrational and buried in bias.

To be clear, I have nothing against keeping your own local backups. There are fine reasons for doing so; most of them aren’t buried in any objective rationale, but that’s nothing new or particularly objectionable.

[Benny Profane]

Sure. Your personal disaster avoidance posture is probably better than google’s, or Amazon’s, or apple’s, or Microsoft’s or…. .

Makes sense. You should definitely pay a premium to maintain your own hardware at home.

What's the premium? And what is there to maintain? Just plug it all in and go. And, I know it's there, and will be there tomorrow. Peace of mind. Two 6T drives, at like, $180 each, and it looks like at least five to eight years, at this rate. Who the fuck knows what tech companies will be around in that time.

[MakersTeleMark]

Do you keep all your cash under your bed too?

[BS720]

This may be threadjack, but my daughter just stomped my old iPad. Any way to back this up to something else, if my cloud is outdated?

[Mustonen]

What's the premium? And what is there to maintain? Just plug it all in and go. And, I know it's there, and will be there tomorrow. Peace of mind. Two 6T drives, at like, $180 each, and it looks like at least five to eight years, at this rate. Who the fuck knows what tech companies will be around in that time.

5-8 years? I wouldn’t have peace of mind with any piece of consumer grade backup equipment that is more than 4 years old. And you said your setup cost $800. That’s a premium over monthly billing for a period equivalent to reasonable lifespan of that equipment. It’s also a premium of fucking around with it. Plugging shit in. Running CC. Etc.

It’s all fine, and you do you. Maybe Microsoft will go tits up and all their servers in every redundant data center will catch fire simultaneously? You’ll certainly be vindicated here. Objectively, it’s a lot more likely that something happens with you and your infrastructure.

[Benny Profane]

https://www.crn.com/slide-shows/clou...f-2021-so-far-

[skaredshtles]

https://www.crn.com/slide-shows/clou...f-2021-so-far-

Bless your heart.