Looking for laptop for starting IT degree and Cybersecurity

[mdubbrin]

I am currently a Senior in HS and have applied to a good BS in IT program. I also plan on getting my MS in Cybersecurity after. I am currently on a MacBook Pro (2017) and it's good for my HS work but it won't be able to do things like host VMs. I am not a Mac hater but am a dualist between Mac and Windows. I was leaning more towards a newer MacBook Pro or Air simply because you can host any Linux distro and Windows machine as a VM, but you can't have a Mac VM. I am not an expert on their unified boards so I don't know the comparison of 8gb of ram to 8gb unified ram in the MacBook is. My HS IT program is receiving a possible donation of laptops for students to keep, so I might end up using that but I don't know the specs yet. Is having the Mac environment a big benefit in the IT and Cybersecurity world (as I can add other Linux and Windows VMs)?

 

What do you guys recommend? I personally want to wait to see what we might get from our IT program but if they turn out bad, what system do you recommend?

[Electronics Wizardy]

11 minutes ago, mdubbrin said:

Air simply because you can host any Linux distro and Windows machine as a VM

Thats not really true now that Apple is using ARM. Most linux distros and x86 Windows won't run on those systems, or will run slowly with emulation.

 

12 minutes ago, mdubbrin said:

I don't know the comparison of 8gb of ram to 8gb unified ram in the MacBook is.

Its 8GB in both. If your program needs more ram, 8GB won't cut it. But all new Apple systems start at 16GB now.

 

Look at what the program recommends first. 

[Dognar]

I completed my MS in cybersecurity about a year ago. You don't need anything special. In my program, we spent a lot of time in Linux environments using hacking tools and defense programs. Make sure you can run a Linux VM if you go with Windows or Mac and that you have enough resources to do so.

 

For the bachelors, honestly you could code on a crappy i5 and still make it (I grew up intel, but pivoted to AMD with the chip issues persisting) - most programming classes really only need enough memory and CPU to run Visual Studio (and Visual Studio Code) along with some database programs like Oracle or SQL Server. Java classes use Eclipse or Netbeans still I think. If you are looking to write more than schools will teach you, then get a better CPU and memory. Personally, I used an Alienware a long time ago to do my course work and run videos in the background just fine, though Windows takes a lot more resources with each release. You likely won't need more than 500gb of storage for school and 16gb of memory and something upper i5 - i7 equivalent for the CPU.

 

Bargain shop brands where you can. I don't know if getting bogged down in the boards is really going to matter at the end of the day. Apple computers are always the most expensive and least able to upgrade over time.

 

From my experience you need more memory if you have a minor in data related things like analytics, models and anything spatial. I would save money where you can since college is already very expensive - laptops only have a decent life in IT of maybe 4 years if you are lucky. I wish you luck with your degrees!

[Satan_Prometheus]

An alternate idea, depending on your living situation and how much space and patience you have, would be to actually get 2 computers. You could get a cheap used laptop for taking to class, and then get a used desktop with a higher-core-count CPU that you can use to install various VMs, and also possibly use as a file server for your school projects. You could set it up so that you could remote into those VMs if necessary. It would obviously be more complicated, but you'd probably learn more by doing it, and if you buy used it could actually be really cheap.

 

I'm just finishing up an associate's in computer information systems and I'm still using an 11 year old Latitude as my daily driver for class (i5-4200U, 8GB DDR3, 500GB SSD). If I have to do anything that I really can't handle, I do that on my desktop at home. That said, I was able to do basically all of the work for my software development capstone project on the old laptop and didn't have any serious issues working with VSCode and SQLite.

 

Since all my files are backed up at home, I can just blow away the OS on my laptop whenever necessary in order to try new Linux distros or make whatever changes I want without having to worry about losing my data.

 

I realize that I'm privileged to have the space to be able to have multiple machines and (the beginnings of) a homelab, so if you're going to live in a tiny dorm room you might feel differently.

 

I'm not saying everyone should do this, it's just what I would do lol.

[mdubbrin]

UPDATE: We got the laptops. The best one that we got is an HP Elitebook 840 G6 with an 8th-generation gen I7 and 8 GB of RAM. If it all goes through and we get to keep them, I'd probably upgrade the RAM to 32 GB because there is a discount on RAM. Although the screen is not the best...there was another laptop with a really good screen (at least it looked like it) but I wasn't able to check the specs of it. All I know is that it is a Probook, which I believe is generally the tier below the elite books. We got them for our cyber defense program and possibly for seniors to graduate with (for those who are going into IT/CS).

 

I really appreciate your responses and luck! I have gotten into my #1 choice for colleges with a 4-year scholarship. Hopefully, that will allow me to allocate some savings towards certs or a master's program.