Solinus

Thanks. It was already. Gone.

Fair enough. I just figured there might be a somewhat better way, but I get that no matter what you do there will be some left out or unhappy.

One other thought I had...and not sure how possible this is, but for next year maybe it would be helpful to put people in a drawing for VIP. And just to keep to it limited to folks who are serious about VIP or other specific add-ons (like tours), you could require a deposit (say $100 USD). Everyone who is interested would have to pre-register and when it's their turn to order they have up to a 4 or 8 hour window to complete the purchase (not unlike what EVGA did for their RTX 3000 series queues). I feel like this would be much less chaotic and would be more fair for everyone so that if the purchase they wanted to make wasn't available they could easily pivot from let's say an Orca package to a Dolphin or even a two day pass with the tour add-ons. As it sits right now, I'm sure many of us feel like we got our legs taken out from under us twice or more because we couldn't downgrade fast enough when what we wanted wasn't available.

Thanks Linus. Appreciate the response. I get the VIP thing. What about those of us who just want to take a tour of the office and labs? I think many of us who couldn't get VIP tickets would love to at least have a chance to do that. After I was unsuccessful getting VIP tickets, I couldn't get tour tickets either because they kept selling out from under me.

I'm sure that's the case. And that makes sense that they get first dibs, but still sucks.

I'm really disappointed. I got everything purchased for travel over a month ago. Had all my ducks in a row for the LTX site. Everything was (and still is) in my cart...I really hope they add more office tours and labs tours.

+100000000

Yep same. I wanted the tours more than anything else.

I was ready with everything but there were only 12 Orca VIP tickets? That's crazy...bleh. Really bummed as I did everything possible to check out quickly.

Not a bad idea, although I'm traveling alone so I'll have to see if I can make some friends lol. Either way, it'll probably be fine. I just am trying to avoid the extra hassle. I, too, will probably just carry my laptop around in my bag most of the day.

Thanks for that. Doesn't quite answer my question, though.

If it's first come first serve, how do we make sure we have a table when we want to go and come back if we don't want to leave our equipment at the table? I plan on bringing my laptop or steam deck neither of which I will leave at the table. Does that mean I just have to roam around and find a random table every time I want to game? Seems a bit less than ideal given that those with full desktop setups are able to leave them there and come and go as they please. Thoughts?

Hi team, I want to start out by saying the team did end up refunding me for the item and the shipping charge for this mess a few days ago, but in the end the product I wanted went out of stock and it was supposed to be a Christmas present for my wife so the experience was pretty poor. In August of 2022, I bought an LTT screwdriver and water bottle. I was happy to wait so when everything finally shipped at the end of December (after Christmas), I was excited to get the package! The screwdriver came and I'll echo others in saying I love it and use it all the time now! The problem is that the package only contained the screwdriver and not the water bottle. I thought perhaps there was another shipment so I checked to see if there were separate tracking numbers, but there were not. I then reached out to support that day (December 30th) and after about a week someone replied and shipped out a replacement water bottle free of charge. Everything seemed fine aside from how long it takes for people to get back to you...24 hours seems reasonable. A week seems excessive IMO. Then nothing came. Again. I followed the tracking number and it still hasn't budged since it was shipped on January 6th. I emailed support again on 1/29 after trying to give things time to move. This time I did receive a reply within 24 hours (yay!) and was told that the item was lost and I was refunded for the shipping and water bottle and told it was out of stock and to order another color or wait until stock was replenished. Needless to say while I appreciate the refund, the experience was really sub par especially since this was something ordered way back in August nearly 6 month ago! I'm glad you guys are focusing on improving the customer service side of LTT Store etc but just wanted you to know that it was really an unpleasant experience. Thanks.

+1

For the next piece of Linus's home theater, I'd love to see a couple of videos of MadVR's free software and their dedicated appliance MadVR Envy. I have an Envy and if MadVR isn't willing to loan you one (they would most likely), I'd be willing to loan you mine. It's an amazing piece of tech. While the Envy is out of reach for most users due to cost, MadVR is pretty awesome and it would be cool to play with all the nerd nobs on a PC build. I also didn't think it would make a difference, but even on the JVC NZ8 I just installed it has dramatically improved our viewing experience.

So I set this up on the following rig: Ryzen 5950X 64 GB DDR4 3600 CAS 16 2 TB M.2 PCIe Gen 4 Sabrent NVMe Dual RTX 3080s Windows 11 Pro Was able to get the VMs up and after a few fights with the resolution being stuck at 720p despite the fact that I had plugged in some dummy HDMI adapters in both cards, I was able to run a few benchmarks without any major issues. I then decided to fire up a game (Icarus) in DX11 mode. The game loaded and looked great, but as soon as I launched a mission it crashed with a "out of memory" error. Unsure what that could be related to. Anyone else have this issue?

Thanks for your thoughts. Seems like there have been more complaints about Razer's build quality overall. While I agree that Alienware of old was awesome, that's not to say this current crop is bad. Most reviewers seem to like the x15 overall. While I know I'm sacrificing a bit of performance for light and thin, it seems both of these options are pretty good for wrist heat. Def going to stay away from Gigabyte and even MSI. Asus does also have a smaller laptop as well that maybe I should consider instead of the Razer. Hmmm. Good thoughts. Thanks!

Trying to decide it I want to go with a Razer 15 or Alienware x15 laptop. Both aren't perfect and have their pros and cons. Does anyone have experience with either or both? The config I'm looking at is: 12th Gen Intel i7 (I'd rather have AMD Ryzen 6000 but it's not an option) 32 GB RAM 1 TB SSD RTX 3070 Ti (most likely) QHD Display I know there are cheaper gaming laptops out there but I'm really looking for something light, thin, and powerful given the form factor. I currently have a Dell XPS 15 with a GTX 1650 and it does ok, but I'd like something that can stretch its legs a bit more. I love the form factor which is why I want to stick with something about the same size. Any advice?

I also agree doing VMs is the way to go. Is extremely helpful as your office needs change and grow and you upgrade you can easily migrate the VM to a new server. That said, to answer your original question: as a file server for 30 users, the answer is: it's probably fine with that hardware, however, it really depends on how it is going to be used. For example, if I had two video editors trying to edit 4k or 8k video on the fly, that would very easily overpower that single gigabit ethernet adapter. If I just have Word/Excel or PDF type documents that people are opening and sharing, that setup is probably just fine. It really depends on what type of work loads those 30 users will be putting on the system.

In general, unless it's for fairly static storage, I tend to stay away from the J series. Usually very underpowered and outdated in no time. I also recommend a 2 bay Synology. Having a single point of failure like that is something that can bite you in the butt later. While a mirror isn't a backup, it's certainly better than putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak. It also gives you flexibility so you can upgrade drives at any time without having to move your storage somewhere else, put the new drive in, rebuild, and move the data back. That said, will it do what you are aiming for? Yes. Just be aware of some of the drawbacks.

I would also like to know what keyboard that is. I need that! Edit: looks like it's this one - https://www.newegg.com/black-roccat-sova-membrane/p/N82E16823436021?item=9SIAN04BBS4933&source=region&nm_mc=knc-googlemkp-pc&cm_mmc=knc-googlemkp-pc-_-pla-deyimin+deals-_-gaming+keyboard-_-9SIAN04BBS4933&gclid=Cj0KCQjwtZH7BRDzARIsAGjbK2YuLcpjXEoFxoisj3kVLK_0TcPqqa6d_NKOz9mTO35g2kFbGY1G4yIaAk3EEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

These are all awesome! Thank you for sharing!

Absolutely agree with the Synology. There are other models if that one doesn't quite have the performance you want. Personally I like to stick with the DSXXX+ series. The play and non plus are just fine tho for the majority of things, but I like the extra horsepower.

I can't recommend Synology enough. They are inexpensive, highly flexible, and have lots of apps for other things. By far my favorite NAS.

This really can be about whatever you like to store, but for me, personally, I have a combination of Dell 730XD servers along with a Synology. This is all for Emby/Plex media. Something better out there you like?