Microsoft reveals why no Surface device has Thunderbolt and why you can’t upgrade your RAM

[RedRound2]

18 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

Look, because you ignore all the drawbacks, does not mean they are not there.

TB does cost money and it is a security hole. You may ignore that or don't agree on the importance, but that does not make them vanish. They are both there and valid facts.

 

Thinking Apple is giving them for free is also kind of funny. Without TB, it would be cheaper. No company will put in expenses for free, just because.

And going by your comment about "a 2k device should have it", well... a 2k device should also have adequate cooling to use the included components. Apple products don`t offer that,... after just 2min of going full blast, the CPUs usually throttle below base. So they have TB, yes. But they will melt, long before they can saturate even USB3. Or even use half of their theoretical performance. My MacBook Air will actually shut down after a few minutes of using its full performance. It will reach 105 degree celsius and just shut down. What kind of heavy workload does that need? Well,... installing a 10gb game will be enough.

 

There is no way in hell these machines can saturate USB3, let alone TB. But good thing they added it for marketing, right?

 

So you are fine with a bottleneck that affects everyone using their device, but a bottleneck that affects one in tens of thousands is unacceptable? Do you not see the irony there?

I'm just not going to bother with this anymore. The "extra" cost you keep touting about has made no difference in the end pricing of these computers. They've costed the same as their previous gen without it and they seem to continue down the same path. Unless you can find me substancial evidence that costs hundreds and thoudsands of dollars, that's not a valid point.

 

Throttle below base is not something that happens in newer macbook pros. Second, how does using peripherals increase the sustained load to a 100%. Third, your analogy breaks down when you actually compare real world usage where macs are preffered over windows for content creation. And apparently for them, they're able to do their work faster than adequatly cooled PC and thats what matters in the end. Besides, numbers over 100 degree. usually would ever come in synthtic benchmarks.

 

Not to mention this has nothing to do with conversation and you're just taking this opportunity to shit on Apple for whatever they do. So the last point you made makes absolutely no sense.

13 hours ago, leadeater said:

No because it doesn't have TB in place of ports in question, you really haven't bothered listening to anything have you. Why are you replying at all if you have no interest in what anyone is saying?

 

13 hours ago, leadeater said:

So you didn't read that did you. All the cheaper laptops in the market that used to exist that had the ports I'm talking about, I only buy cheap laptops for my personal usage, are the ones affected by what I said. If I wanted to spend a ton of money on a laptop then yes I have all the options in the world, what about those that don't that had options in the past but now do not? Does my need for an Ethernet port no longer matter because I'm not willing to spend enough?

Cheaper laptops dont even have thunderbolt. What are you complaining about? Thunderbolt is usually found in laptops ranging from $1000 and up and you can usually get a fully loaded one or a thin and light with only type c. Also, what is wrong in buying a laptop thats marketed for buinsess users? Nobody is going to fine doing that. You do you and get the laptop you want with ports. All I want is whatever type c port there is, whether it is an only type c laptop or not, should have at least one thunderbolt.

 

Microsoft doesn't. That's my whole point

 

And I specifically asked you to asnwer all my questions properly instead of cherry picking what you reply too. So lets not bother continuing this if you're not going to do this in good faith. I've wasted so much of my time already on this.

11 hours ago, divito said:

I'm not sure I agree there; this use case sounds fairly out there. Most people and clients I've encountered use a dedicated desktop for home use (even those that use laptops extensively when not home), and for those that eschew a desktop, are using fairly standard laptops and use their ethernet for NAS devices at home for most transfers, and SSD via 3.1 for most other scenarios, for those that don't do heavy ingestion.

That's today's case. Even I have a laptop and a desktop. But most people including me are perfectly fine with the performance of a 15" laptop these days, and such set up would alleviate any need for a desktop. This also brings tonnes of convinience as my files and data would not be split between PCs. NAS is not as common as you think in most households. It requires you to make a proper ideal setup y a techie. While I can do that, most people cant. The evidence for it is the fact that many many Youtubers use external storage devices to store archival footage.

11 hours ago, divito said:

I've actually helped a few digital professionals and some small businesses alter some work flows because they were drowning in peripheral and dongle overload. It was easier and more cost-effective to upgrade their mobile units to larger capacity internal storage, and for others, upgrading to newer units with ethernet and ditching the majority of their removable media.

That works. It's good for desktops. I'm talking about laptops where upgrading laptops is not feasible.

11 hours ago, divito said:

Personally, I don't think I'd ever choose a device that forces me to increase my peripherals for equal functionality, especially when there are viable options with standard I/O that rival the thinness and lightness of "the best."

Sigh. I dont understand how nobody seems to get the point. You're not increasing peripherals, you're consolidating it. Have a premade set up and both home and office - displays, keyboard, mouse, eGPUs (if required) all required peripherals connected a central dock. Plug in your laptop the dock and you have everything running. Such a system would need thunderbolt as its communication infrastructure.

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

That sounds like something you could do easily over 5Gbps USB.

The only thing that might be slightly bottlenecked is your external storage, but assuming a typical scenario that should be on a network device anyway, not directly plugged in to your computer.

I don't have regular use to warrant for NAS. Plus the external storage contains a lot more than media. Basically anything over a gigabyte I store it in my external device, so frequently access it all the time, It works really well for me, and I dont have to be concerned about security as I also have a lot DIY IoT stuff connected at home.

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I doubt even your example actually would get bottlenecked by USB-C, and if it does it's probably for very short periods of time. Or in an absolute worst case scenario, you could connect the external storage to another USB ports and use two ports instead of one. Shouldn't be too much trouble, right? And I think it would be well worth it if it meant saving a couple of hundred dollars.

It's not, but I like the idea of one cable future and have everything connected and set up already, upon my inital connection. Makes for aestheic setup and good cable management too, as I dont ever have to fiddle around with wires. I know this is a little out there, but everyone can benefit from this if they know it exists

 

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Well, corporate settings is where the vast majority of docks are used. That's why I brought it up.

2.5Gbps and 5Gbps is even more rare than Thunderbolt. I get that you want to use 2.5Gbps as an argument for why USB C is limiting but the fact of the matter is that barely anyone uses 2.5Gbps or 5Gbps, so it's kind of irrelevant. If you want high speed networking access, get 10Gbps. The ones that do already have (or at least should have). But I don't see the need for such high speed networking on a laptop. If you're going to for example work with large files that require so much bandwidth, shouldn't you do that on a desktop? I mean, the network won't be your bottleneck in that scenario. The laptop will be.

Also, pretty sure USB C docks has enough headroom to do 2.5Gbps.

I do a lot of video editing on my laptop. And it's perfectly doable. Sure render times may be 20 minutes instead of 10 minutes but it doesnt really matter to me as benefits of portability outweigh the extra time I spend on my phone. 2.5, 5, 10Gb/s backend is an available option. I'm a tech nerd, so whenver I do have a fully fledged home newtwork I will jump for the highest one I can buy. And I do plan to in next 5 years. Getting full speed, on the laptop that m going to buy today, is indeed future proofing for me. And in more practical sense, there are a lot of content creators with laptops, so it'll benefit them, if they do follow a structured workdlow. Again, it's an option.

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

And by the time 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps is mature then we will be on USB 4 already. So it will be a non-issue. If you think you're "future proofing" your laptop by getting one with Thunderbolt you're sadly mistaken. Thunderbolt will die out in favor of USB 4, just like USB 3 will die out in favor of USB 4. It doesn't make sense to try and future proof by buying a dying standard when both USB 3 and USB 4 will be replaced by the same thing in the future.

And Im hoping USB4 will solve that issue. Also why wouldnt Thunderbolt 3 just get a driver update to be USB4, since its basically the same thing. So if you get a TB3 laptop today -- itll be USB4 tomorrow

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

The difference is that while most people don't need an i7, they still benefit from it being there. Processing is faster if your processor is faster.

If you don't use Thunderbolt (which most people don't) it is completely wasted by being there. You don't benefit from Thunderbolt unless you actually use Thunderbolt. You benefit from an i7 even though you could make do with an i5.

That's where your analogy completely breaks down.

But is those burst speeds noticable? You secrelty replace an i7 laptop with an i5 one and I doubt anyone is going to notice. Thunderbolt can be used. eGPUs are a thing. And while i wouldnt recommend a full 2080 ti in it, a second hand 1070 will give you a massive boost in gaming performance in most laptops. And this in addition to everything else i said above.

 

Again, having thunderbolt gives you the option. And it doesnt compromise on anything else. So for a 2000 laptop, i dont expect dumb skimps like this

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Yes, Thunderbolt is common in high end laptops today. And yet, barely anyone uses it. That should tell you something. That it's kind of a pointless feature except for an extremely small minority of people (out of which most are Apple users).

Most are apple because apple has the leverage to force new tech into the market. They've done this so many times. And eventually itll come over in windows laptops too.

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

AMD devices can have Thunderbolt so I don't think "they used AMD" is the reason why they skipped Thunderbolt.

Like you said, I think they skipped it because they wanted to get some higher margins on their devices. But since barely anyone uses it they weren't afraid of losing sales by skipping it. Why spend money on a feature that is useless to 99.99% of your potential customers?

And yeah, I totally agree that the AMD chip in their notebook was crap compared to the Intel one. I don't think that's very relevant to this conversation though.

AMD can, but Im yet to see a single AMD laptop with thunderbolt and there's currently only one motherboad in the AMD side that has TB3. So i dont think they've straightened things out yet

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Yes but people like you are in an extreme minority and when you are you can't expect companies to always support your workflow when designing their devices.

But even with your setup I really don't think you would be limited with a USB C dock. Tell me again what you had connected.

1) Gigabit Ethernet - Uses up to 1Gbps but usually way less. It doesn't seem like you have a NAS so you should be limited to your Internet connection in most cases. So maybe 100Mbps? 200Mbps? Let's say a 500Mbps connection just so that you don't get mad at me for underestimating

2) External storage - Depends on what storage you got but let's say it peaks at 2Gbps. That's 250Mbps sequential speeds. That's twice as fast as my high performance 7200 HDD. Unless you got a RAID enclosure or use SSDs, your hard drives will rarely even reach 2Gbps of speed.

3) SDCard for RPi - If you got a really high end microSD it probably has U3 speeds, which is 60MBps write speed. So that's 0.5Gbps.

4) USB drives - Low speed stuff. Doesn't use up much. Let's say 0.5Gbps? That's a pretty high end USB memory stick, or several regular sticks.

 

A) Display - Doesn't eat into the bandwidth unless you got some crazy monitor setup like multiple 4K monitors.

B) Power - Doesn't eat up bandwidth either.

 

 

So even if you got everything plugged in all at once, and also happen to push all those things all at once, you will only use 0.5 + 2 + 0.5 + 0.5 = 4.7Gbps.

And that's if you are using EVERYTHING you listed all at once. I just don't buy into the idea that you need more than what USB C would provide. And that's with you as an example, which is what I would consider the niche group of users who got a bunch of high speed stuff connected to your dock. Most people don't even come close to this.

Gigabit ethernet for home network. We do have a 500Mbps connection, so you can assume the remaning 500 goes into the available badnwidth for home network. And I would upgrade to a fatter pipe, just for lolz in the future. Either 2.5, 5 or even 10

 

Mouse, keyboard, SDCard wouldn't take all much bandwidth. So yeah lets take it 0.5

I have a bucnh of US 3.0 drives. I do definitely get slightly over 1 Gb/s for all of it. External storage does have RAID0 for faster speeds and I always keep shuffling files back and forth. If the performace is good, Ill use this for gaming, else Ill get an SSD enclosure later down the road. And i forgot, to play games, I do need eGPU, and I was planning on connecting the dock itself to the second thunderbolt port behind eGPU, making all the devices pretty much stationary and configuring it all in a plug and play sort of set up.

 

Im a tech nerd and you could ask me why i dont just build a desktop. Well, its because I need the portability right now and I dont see myself staying at the place Im at for future. So one day I will build a desktop when I settle, but until then my laptop sort of becomes a psedo desktop for the forseeable future and it's thanks to thunderbolt.

 

And i know not many people will be doing this. But again, having the option to do so is what matters. I'm not forcing people to use thunderbolt peripherals or anything. Just for the main machine, ie laptop to be thunderbolt capable

[RedRound2]

52 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

RedRound2 seems to be in situation 2, but doing what I said shouldn't be done. Cheap out on the internals of a computer, and then buy a bunch of external stuff to make up for it. RedRound2's setup might work fine, but it's not optimal. And since it's a very rare situation, on top of being sub-optimal, I think it's silly to blame manufacturers for not catering to his wants and needs.

And like I said earlier with some tissue math, I don't actually think he needs Thunderbolt and that USB C would work just as well, for significantly cheaper.

I didn't cheap out in internals. I just prefer not cluttering my laptop with heavy files. Plus the storage devices are at home or office where it's safe but my laptop is something i take everywhere. Because it's a thin and light it doesnt have a good graphics capabilty, so in future i plan to have an eGPU to play games and accelerate processes like video rendering.

 

As for the dock itself, its a one time investment. So it didnt matter to me much and is not something im going to replace anytime soon, or ever. 

 

Ad there's nothing to balme anyone about anything. There's already powerful laptop in the market with thunderbolt ports. I could do fine with any of them. I'm talking only about microsft i general. I like their laptop just because of the aspect ratio. But no thunderbolt is a deal breaker for me and I hate it when they come up with random pathetic excuses, especially after charging the cosumers an exorbitant amount

[Tech Enthusiast]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

So even if you got everything plugged in all at once, and also happen to push all those things all at once, you will only use 0.5 + 2 + 0.5 + 0.5 = 4.7Gbps.

And that's if you are using EVERYTHING you listed all at once. I just don't buy into the idea that you need more than what USB C would provide. And that's with you as an example, which is what I would consider the niche group of users who got a bunch of high speed stuff connected to your dock. Most people don't even come close to this.

I went the same tune, but was to lazy to write it all up,... since honestly it is hard to argue with apple marketing. They say it is great, people think it is mandatory and the future. Just how it works sadly.

Amazing write up, thank you.

 

The bottom line for me is:

USB3 will not bottleneck even "those" use-cases AND the laptop in question would melt after seconds, if the workflow would actually go full blast on the bandwidth.

[Trinopoty]

Just my two cents.

DMA itself isn't a problem in any form. It has existed as a feature for a long time.

The problem with TB3 however is that it exposes DMA to an insecure world.

Other than TB3, DMA only exists in a somewhat controlled environment. SATA/NVMe controllers, sound chips, network chips all contain DMA but they all exist inside your PC. In order to get a rouge device to use DMA, you have to take apart your PC and plug it into a PCIe slot.

TB takes the DMA mechanism and exposes it via a easily accessible port where anyone can plug any rogue device.

I can carry a thumb drive sized device that when I plug into your TB3 port, can take over your system. If I want to do that to a non TB system, I need to carry a PCIe card and have to take apart your PC to install it which I'm sure you won't be happy about.

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

I don't have regular use to warrant for NAS. Plus the external storage contains a lot more than media. Basically anything over a gigabyte I store it in my external device, so frequently access it all the time, It works really well for me, and I dont have to be concerned about security as I also have a lot DIY IoT stuff connected at home.

But you wouldn't have to constantly move stuff on and off your external storage if your computer had enough storage to begin with.

 

2 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

It's not, but I like the idea of one cable future and have everything connected and set up already, upon my inital connection. Makes for aestheic setup and good cable management too, as I dont ever have to fiddle around with wires. I know this is a little out there, but everyone can benefit from this if they know it exists

Everything you just said applies to USB C as well.

 

2 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

I do a lot of video editing on my laptop. And it's perfectly doable. Sure render times may be 20 minutes instead of 10 minutes but it doesnt really matter to me as benefits of portability outweigh the extra time I spend on my phone. 2.5, 5, 10Gb/s backend is an available option. I'm a tech nerd, so whenver I do have a fully fledged home newtwork I will jump for the highest one I can buy. And I do plan to in next 5 years. Getting full speed, on the laptop that m going to buy today, is indeed future proofing for me. And in more practical sense, there are a lot of content creators with laptops, so it'll benefit them, if they do follow a structured workdlow. Again, it's an option.

I don't really think "tech nerd" is the right word here but I think I finally figured you out. You don't want Thunderbolt because it's what you need. You want it because it says 40Gbps instead of 5Gbps on the sticker, and 40 is a higher number than 5. And that's fine. But you're not everyone.

And this is not future proofing. Trying to go for the fastest and best stuff all the time is not "future proofing". We have seen this time and time again. We don't know what will happen in the future so everything you buy today might be obsolete in 5 years, so it's always best to buy what you need when you need it. There are some exceptions to this rule, but a commodity like a laptop is not something you can or should try to "future proof".

 

And your workflow is not what I would consider "structured". The two options I mentioned earlier are what I would consider structured. Get the right tool for the right job. Constantly moving files back and forth between an external hard drive is a terrible idea and not at all as good as the options I mentioned.

Your workflow sounds to me like a classic example of "when all you have is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail". You got a ton of issues with your setup, and your solution is to just buy peripherals and plug them in with Thunderbolt. Not enough storage? Thunderbolt! Not enough GPU processing power? Thunderbolt! Not a big enough screen? Thunderbolt! No high speed network connection? Thunderbolt!

 

 

2 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

And Im hoping USB4 will solve that issue. Also why wouldnt Thunderbolt 3 just get a driver update to be USB4, since its basically the same thing. So if you get a TB3 laptop today -- itll be USB4 tomorrow

That's not confirmed yet.

USB 4 and Thunderbolt 3 are similar, but not exactly the same. Thunderbolt 3 support is optional for USB 4 devices. A device can support USB 4, but not Thunderbolt. Here is a quote from the USB-IF:

Quote

"Regarding USB4 specification’s optional support for Thunderbolt 3, USB-IF anticipates PC vendors to broadly support Thunderbolt 3 compatibility in their USB4 solutions given Thunderbolt 3 compatibility is now included in the USB4 specification and therefore royalty free for formal adopters," the USB-IF said in a statement. "That said, Intel still maintains the Thunderbolt 3 branding/certification so consumers can look for the appropriate Thunderbolt 3 logo and brand name to ensure the USB4 product in question has the expected Thunderbolt 3 compatibility. Furthermore, the decision was made not to make Thunderbolt 3 compatibility a USB4 specification requirement as certain manufacturers (e.g. smartphone makers) likely won’t need to add the extra capabilities that come with Thunderbolt 3 compatibility when designing their USB4 products."

So your Thunderbolt peripherals may not work with USB 4 laptops, and USB 4 laptops might not work with your Thunderbolt peripherals.

This is why I think it's stupid to try and future proof. You might just end up spending a bunch of extra money on stuff you can't even use down the line.

[DarkAcid1212]

On 4/25/2020 at 10:39 AM, SansVarnic said:

Microsoft reveals why no Surface device has Thunderbolt and why you can’t upgrade your RAM

by Surur @mspoweruserApr 25, 2020 at 10:50 GMT

 

Source: https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-reveals-why-no-surface-device-has-thunderbolt-and-you-cant-upgrade-your-ram/

 

Simply put, because it is not secure.

Well this sucks, I was hoping that the Surface 7 and the Surface X would have type C (surface X has type C) and thunderbolt but I have to admit I did not take this into consideration.

The article is not very long but there is a snippet from the presentation that explains this.

 

 

Thoughts?

So.....Macbooks are not that secure?

[Curufinwe_wins]

26 minutes ago, DarkAcid1212 said:

So.....Macbooks are not that secure?

Ffs (15th time this has been addressed in thread). It isn't that thunderbolt is known to be insecure. It is that if vulnerabilities are ever found/demonstrated, patching the issue is almost impossible. Apple's T2 chip does not actually prevent the issue, but it can help sometimes, with the tradeoff being that if that ever gets found vulnerable, Apple (well those Apple products) is 100% fucked.

[leadeater]

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I don't really think "tech nerd" is the right word here but I think I finally figured you out. You don't want Thunderbolt because it's what you need. You want it because it says 40Gbps instead of 5Gbps on the sticker, and 40 is a higher number than 5. And that's fine. But you're not everyone.

And this is not future proofing. Trying to go for the fastest and best stuff all the time is not "future proofing". We have seen this time and time again. We don't know what will happen in the future so everything you buy today might be obsolete in 5 years, so it's always best to buy what you need when you need it. There are some exceptions to this rule, but a commodity like a laptop is not something you can or should try to "future proof".

It's not future proofing because just having bandwidth is not enough, you can have all the bandwidth in the world but if a new technology is developed that does something different that can actually make use of the bandwidth guess what will not support that new technology? Your old one designed and sold beforehand that doesn't support it.

 

Just buy what you need now, if you actually need something else later it'll likely be better developed and cheaper.

[leadeater]

11 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

And I specifically asked you to asnwer all my questions properly instead of cherry picking what you reply too. So lets not bother continuing this if you're not going to do this in good faith. I've wasted so much of my time already on this.

I was picking points that needed discussing, if it's not included in a quote then it was not need or there was no objection to what you said. You can be right about 90% of what you say but the 10% still needs addressing, or the alternative is it's your opinion so I have nothing to say against it.

 

I don't need to answer all your questions when they all come from you not reading what was said which made the question rather pointless in the first place. You wouldn't be asking the question if you read the point rather than keep saying I don't like Thunderbolt, which is 100% something I've never said.

 

11 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Cheaper laptops dont even have thunderbolt

Good, I don't and will likely never use it. If it exists on a laptop fine, no problem. If it exists on a laptop in place of HDMI and Ethernet then I have a problem. FYI Dell XPS don't have Ethernet anymore, got removed in favor of dongles so those are dead to me.

 

11 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Also, what is wrong in buying a laptop thats marketed for buinsess users?

The price they cost like I said. I have zero interest in spending any more money on a laptop than is necessary for my needs. My current personal laptop is an HP Sleekbook 14, I paid $300 NZD ($190 USD) for it and it has HDMI and Ethernet, it now has an SSD and double the ram that I had laying around so we'll call it $225 USD. How many sub $300 laptops have HDMI and Ethernet today?

 

If I had a need for a better laptop I'd buy a better laptop, since I do not and all I use it for it remote access to other systems and configuring my network equipment and servers having an Etherner port is probably the most important thing, I will not spend $1000 USD just to get that, I won't even spend $600USD just to get that. I did not in the past have to but now it is cheaper to provide less ports and make me pay extra for dongles, which I don't have to do now. Also mine still has a replaceable/swapable battery.

 

My arm is also not falling off holding this laptop, which when configuring a switch you generally don't have access to a nice table or a place to sit so I'm one hand holding and one hand typing for sometimes 30 minutes without a break. It's a 1.8kg laptop, not a 10kg dumbbell. 

 

USB and TB dongles is not better, it is worse user experience and does not solve any real problem. There is no functional purpose to make devices that have to rely on them. Apple, the poster child of design over all else, we tell you how you should like a device, not us listen to you. I actually use to really like MacBook Pros, used to be equal best or second depending on the day/mood and what I was mostly doing at the time.

 

With all my comments in mind what makes you think I like Surface laptops, don't they also violate all my points too? However I don't have a problem with these types of devices existing at all, tablet and portable focused options are totally fine and should exist, MacBook Air included.

[suicidalfranco]

17 hours ago, leadeater said:

I actually use to really like MacBook Pros, used to be equal best or second depending on the day/mood and what I was mostly doing at the time.

Member when macbooks used to be good?

 

 

I 'member!

 

Today i can't look at one without feeling disgusted. It was a pain when they dropped the 17" but hey: at least the 15" inch still had all the ports. Now...

[suicidalfranco]

welp not sure what's going on up there, tried editing three times to remove the last pic, but it just won't register

[GoodBytes]

4 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

welp not sure what's going on up there, tried editing three times to remove the last pic, but it just won't register

If you have your picture in the Post attachment and did not place it in the post, it will add the image at the end of the post. You need to remove your image from the attachment section by clicking on the trash can button that will appear as you hover on the image in the attachment section.

[suicidalfranco]

35 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

If you have your picture in the Post attachment and did not place it in the post, it will add the image at the end of the post. You need to remove your image from the attachment section by clicking on the trash can button that will appear as you hover on the image in the attachment section.

oh ok

all good now

[divito]

On 4/30/2020 at 6:01 AM, RedRound2 said:

That's today's case. Even I have a laptop and a desktop. But most people including me are perfectly fine with the performance of a 15" laptop these days, and such set up would alleviate any need for a desktop. This also brings tonnes of convinience as my files and data would not be split between PCs. NAS is not as common as you think in most households. It requires you to make a proper ideal setup y a techie. While I can do that, most people cant. The evidence for it is the fact that many many Youtubers use external storage devices to store archival footage.

When I say NAS, I am being fairly literal. While yes, some clients that are doing pro work might need an actual server or NAS with some bells and whistles, I'm more talking about the average Joe, that rather than them carrying 10 USB flash drives and keeping track of what files are where, I get them to buy a large external drive and utilize their USB port on their router. Or buy something like a WD My Cloud and actually connect it to the router.

 

On 4/30/2020 at 6:01 AM, RedRound2 said:

That works. It's good for desktops. I'm talking about laptops where upgrading laptops is not feasible.

I wasn't referencing desktop upgrades, but laptop ones. While there are the odd clients that have a laptop where storage cannot be upgraded, the majority do that I've had as clients. And depending on their needs, most are receptive towards upgrading to a 500GB-2TB SSD and not having to worry about offloading or deleting on a regular basis.

For clients where they cannot or are unwilling to upgrade their internal storage, the above-mentioned scenario is what most people go to; on the low end, average Joe-sumer gets a 4TB external drive for their excess that they can access from their network or remotely if they need to. They always have the option of taking it with them, and I typically will advocate for a portable external depending on their use case. 

There are of course, the non-professional clients that have a lot of media or like being connected for entertainment and/or for work. That usually involves a combination of cloud storage options and a NAS for remote usage purposes. If file sizes are an issue or speed is a concern when speaking of cloud or remote options, then a portable external is always recommended.
 

On 4/30/2020 at 6:01 AM, RedRound2 said:

Sigh. I dont understand how nobody seems to get the point. You're not increasing peripherals, you're consolidating it. Have a premade set up and both home and office - displays, keyboard, mouse, eGPUs (if required) all required peripherals connected a central dock. Plug in your laptop the dock and you have everything running. Such a system would need thunderbolt as its communication infrastructure.

I don't disagree with having a dock-setup for home use if you don't have a dedicated desktop. I used to use a laptop at home sometimes and I connected a mouse, keyboard and monitor to it upon arriving home.

But in talking of increasing peripherals, I mean in an ideal scenario, you'd have a laptop that can perform all the tasks needed of it sans additions: ample internal storage to limit or eliminate external storage, Ethernet, USB C, USB 3.1, HDMI, Audio, and an SD card reader. (Bluetooth and WiFi are assumed). 

Under such, you'd need simply 5 cables in your bag for connectivity, and no peripherals. With your scenario, you're always going to have two extra peripherals, being a dongle and a drive. And that says nothing of using a mouse, headphones, etc...