this post was submitted on 31 May 2024
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I went from desktop to 100% laptop over several years; now I'm back on a desktop - using one of those Ryzen 7 mini-PCs - and a 36-key GMK Cherry MX split keyboard that, stacked, is barely larger than the computer. I'm seriously considering getting a small Thunderbolt dock and just carrying that with me between work and wherever. The only annoying bit is the computer I have isn't powered over the USB-C port, which means also carrying a power brick, and that's the straw that keeps me synching data between my computer and laptop.
I could move everything to a bootable USB device, but even over USB-C that'd be orders of magnitude slower than NVMe or SATA.
The laptop is only two years older than the desktop (and maybe less than that since I didn't buy the most current model), cost nearly 3x the PC, and is utterly blown out of the water by the specs on the micro(? 12.5 x 12.5 x 4 cm) PC. Yeah, the laptop has keyboard, pointer, battery, and monitor; that impacts size and cost, but still. I could almost use my PC in a coffee shop, if it weren't for the power brick and the need to do something about a monitor.
I have a foldable phone. Maybe by the time that display technology gets scaled up (and onto the market) there'll be a micro PC that's powered over USB-C and I can put together a small, laptop-sized case with everything I need.
The Frameworks are looking good, though, now that they're selling AMD models. I'll have to check in, in a year or so.
You could get an nvme to USBC thing, that should be pretty fast
TB4 is like 5000MB/s if the mini PC has that. Plenty fast for a lot of applications. It'll cap an NVME but it's good enough to run off of.
Is it? I haven't tried, but there's a pretty big gulf between an NVMe interface max bandwidth and TB4's. I mean, TB4 is pretty amazing (40Gbps), but NVMe m.2 is 128Gbps; Sabrent makes an m.2 SSD with 104kGbps read speeds; heck, Crucial has a $114 2TB m.2 SSD they claim gets 40k/33.6k R/W. And this assumes that whatever computer you get access to has a TB4 port, and not just USBC 3.0, which tops out at 5Gbps.
But this all reminds me that I need to get a bigger NVMe stick and move everything off the SCSI SSD.
Depends on exactly what you need. For a lot of day to day tasks, especially if you're not moving around large amounts of data, TB4 speeds are probably fine.
I wouldn't do it with USB 3.0, but 3.2 gen 2 could theoretically work depending on your workload and use case.
My usage barely benefits past 3.2 gen 2 because my disk is never my bottleneck. It's either network or processor. It's one of those things where everyone has to look at their own usage and decide.
This is... fair. But, while I don't often move large amounts of data, consider: this thread started with me speculating about using a bootable USB drive instead of hauling computer equipment around. So we have to consider that (a) booting will be frequent - more frequent than a desktop or even laptop, maybe twice daily if I'm moving between work and home. That's going to be relatively slow. Then starting up whatever programs: the desktop, apps - god forbid I need to use Eclipse or another monster programs.
I guess I might be able to set it up for hibernate, but since that stores machine state including devices and network state which are going to vary between computers, I'm guessing that's not going to work reliably if at all.
USB 3.x and TB4 put this more in the range of possibility, but it still sounds slow.
Yeah, I may have gone a bit far afield to try to point out that it can be done. It's not going to be for everyone, and maybe it would be too slow for you.
It was fun to think about, and I enjoyed the friendly conversation.
Don't get me wrong: the idea is super appealing, and the technology has gotten good enough it's practical - i absolutely agree about that. I was only saying that there'd be a noticeable difference in performance of you're used to M.2 NVMe.
I think a bigger concern is trusting other people's hardware. It's getting increasingly fraught, with key loggers and such; I'm not sure how much I'd trust my (digital) life to a random computer - and then there's the issue of secure boot, and needing computers that have either unprotected BIOS menus or which are already configured to boot first from USB (which is IME an increasingly rare default configuration).
I can't get over it.
You're one neat backpack and a decent repurpose-able display tablet with a kickstand away from a dream nomad set up.
How big is this power brick that it features so strongly in the 'cons' column!?
It's not, really: 10x5x2.5 cm, plus the wall plug; but it's still there, and it's irritating because they could easily have powered this thing over USBC. Hell, most of my flashlights have USBC charging ports. It's an additional thing to carry, and another thing to have to plug in. Plus, not being USBC makes it far harder to run off a battery pack.
You're right about the rest of it, though.