
Ask HN: Macbook Air + Remote Server = Macbook Pro? - fHbjKlf6
As a developer I need to test code on multiple versions of Windows and for this I have 4 virtual machines running on a Lenovo W500/8GB/256GB laptop plugged into a 24" monitor. For convenience I often have all four running concurrently. However with 8GB ram I often run out of memory and I'm low on disk space, hence my motivation to upgrade. I'm just about to purchase the new retina Macbook pro/16GB/512GB as it would appear a perfect fit as I could easily run all the VM's concurrently with room to spare and being on an SSD they would also be super-fast.<p>However I really value mobility especially around the house and the Macbook Air 13"/8GB/256GB comes highly recommended by peers. I had an epiphany thinking that perhaps I could rent a dedicated server to relieve the memory and disk requirements. With an Intel i7-2600 Quad/16GB/6TB-raid1 from Hetzner.de (50 Euro p.m), I could host all my Windows desktop VM's and also a few Ubuntu server VM's and use remote desktop and SSH to access them respectively. I realize there will be some additional latency but that’s fine for what I need to use them for and I have a 60Mb/s fiber connection.<p>Has anyone else attempted something similar? Am I missing anything? My preliminary research points me to using Linux KVM as the host. Can I really forgo the weight/size of a Retina 15" (+- $3900 here in Europe) for the Macbook air ($2300) + a remote server. Obviously I would be sacrificing the Retina screen and the dedicated GPU but neither is important to me, especially as I spend half my time plugged into a 24" monitor + mechanical keyboard. Additionally I'm not concerned about the cost of a server as I already have many very underutilized servers at my disposal and so it wouldn't cost any extra. Any advice would extremely helpful. Cheers!
======
ubercore
In terms of latency, I've found that <http://mosh.mit.edu/> pretty much
delivers on its promises.

~~~
nwh
I've kept remote sessions active while in at train at 140km/h, constantly
roaming between GPRS, 3G and LTE. Mosh delivers its promises and more.

------
HorizonXP
I'm going to jump in with my own solution. I recently moved over to using a
Google Chromebook running Ubuntu, with Amazon EC2 instances that I connect to
when needed. I spin the instances up and down as I need them. It works
wonderfully, and I can't go back.

Admittedly, the Chromebook does have its limitations compared to a Macbook
Air. Ubuntu on it has its quirks, but I'm willing to deal with it and wait for
issues to be ironed out. A Macbook Air would definitely not have such issues.

I usually do mobile app development, web development, data crunching in Python
for my Masters, and I haven't run into any problems doing what I need to do. I
love the portability and simplicity.

I'd seriously recommend it.

[http://www.xitijpatel.com/2012/12/16/google-chromebook-
and-u...](http://www.xitijpatel.com/2012/12/16/google-chromebook-and-ubuntu)

------
contingencies
I have been Macbook Pro based since April 2010. It's my first Mac. I got ~full
specs at the time (1GB SATA non-SSD drive - no regrets there, I've needed the
space; 2.3Ghz Core i7; 8GB 1333Mhz RAM).

I've taken the system through about 10 countries in 2 years. I don't really
have a house, and I have to carry everything with me. (That includes a video
camera, a heavy pro DSLR, chargers, etc.)

I do use VMWare, plus occasionally game, video edit, etc. and so have similar
performance requirements.

Given the above, and that recently my partner bought a new Macbook Air (far
cheaper), and we took both of them travelling around a few months of
Indonesia, Thailand, etc., I think I am well informed to comment.

My advice would be this: Think very carefully about comfort and workflow,
before money.

Comfort-wise, for me, having a large screen and keyboard are non-negotiable.
The difference is huge, particularly if you want to use the thing instead of a
desktop for any length of time (eg. multi-country mobility, like my
situation).

Workflow-wise, it's ultimately all about your specific situation. In my
situation, I don't have enough space to store all my raw images, VMs, video,
etc. but have come to a good solution with a secondary small form-factor
external USB3 drive I access from the Mac (via rsync over SSH and a Linux VM,
no less! I don't trust non-ext3 filesystems after bad experiences! Some driver
I found claiming ext* support on OSX never worked.). I've never had an SSD-is-
primary-drive machine, so don't feel there is any issue with speed.

As for remote ... depends on the connection quality and reliability where you
are planning to go.

Sounds to me like you could probably solve your build/test issues by queueing
testing via your development process, eg. by syncing your new code only when
online and using a remote (eg. EC2-hosted) continuous integration server which
could probably resolve a lot of issues you never knew you had, as well as the
ones you are looking at. That way you could use cloud windows boxes spun up
automatically from platform-linked images, potentially bringing them up and
down automatically with your CI server.

If you are worried about money, don't be. We forget how much time we spend in
front of these things. It's far better to invest in good tools. Really. I
mean, 60Mb/s fiber in Europe, don't worry about a few ms, or a few hundred
dollars. Worry about your health.

~~~
ciferkey
You're line of work sounds very interesting. I'd love to hear more about it!

~~~
contingencies
OK. I am basically a 15 year Linux user, web-stack focused code-wise, but
never left the source-based Unix environment and unix-fu. Compiling kernels,
configuring HA clusters, low level packet mangling, all good. These days I'm
mostly interested in improving development process, emerging kernel features,
and systems architecture. Working for a startup remotely right now, very hands
on ... everything from speccing hardware and layout to purchase, physical
network configuration, system setup & ongoing admin, design of full web stack
.. writing all code through to JS .. even UI design. My strength, I would say,
lies in breadth of experience and honesty. It took me 15 years to get a job
this fantasic though, and that's constant work. When I meet office-dwellers,
in a bar, I explain to them: that's longer than a BA, MA, PhD and a few years
of work experience combined. And I had to office-dwell, too, once.

------
nytheus
I have asked myself the same question as I would like to upgrade my machine. I
currently run a MBA 2011 with 4GB of RAM. It is by far my best computer
purchase. When I'm at a desk, it's plugged into an external monitor. Until
Mountain Lion, I never had a problem with RAM, but I've adjusted how I do
things on my laptop to fix the issue. I wrote up a PrOACT and found that it
came down to 1 point for me.

\- Do I require the dedicated video card and is that video card worth $1000+
increased bill

So if you're only looking to do development, go for the MBA since it's better
cost for use. The Retina doesn't matter if you're always plugged in like I am.

Your only question you should ask yourself is, do you either want to use
multiple monitors which the MBA can not do or do you want to be able to play
games that require the video card?

Latency to me is not a problem. I live in asia and there is internet
everywhere. Would it really make that much of a difference for you?

~~~
fHbjKlf6
Thanks, I don't do any gaming but I would like the ability for multiple
monitors. This article suggest that the latest 2012 models do support 2
external displays - [http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/06/new-macbooks-can-
manage...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/06/new-macbooks-can-manage-many-
many-monitors/)

~~~
nytheus
I didn't know the 2012 models support multiple monitors. Since that's the case
and you do not want to game it's a no brainer.

8GB of ram + SSD will get you far!

~~~
dfamorato
My Retina Macbook Pro 13" is my main machine and I connect 2 27" Viewsonic
monitors to it daily. It works just fine for everyday work (iterm, vim,
intellij, rdp and office apps)

If only it had 16GB (not available on the 13" rMBP model), it would be the
perfect laptop

------
sbouafif
I am using an early 2011 MPB. It was my first Mac (after using Debian for 4+
years). I needed it for my school work (using Adobe Photoshop was a must). I
needed a computer I could easily carry (home to school and home to
girlfriend's home, which is 700km from where I live).

I use my computer for web development, watching a few high resolution movies
and playing to some humble bundle games. I didn't buy a MacBook Air because of
the integrated graphic chip (some of my friends have one and using it with a
27' monitor made the MBA/MPB 13' really really hot, especially during the
summer ; it was around 30/35°C in France). Plus I ended up doing my internship
in a company where their core knowledge was working using WebGL. Anyone trying
to use our product with a MBA/MBP 13' couldn't because of the integrated
graphic.

I also tried to work directly on a server (for coding), it's really great but
as soon as you don't have Internet (either you use your phone for the
connection or you are stuck and you can't work) you are stuck. And I've been
stuck more than I thought I will. I didn't know about mosh at the time and had
also a few problems with connection/deconnection and that is really painfull
when you are using a few ssh terminal at the same time.

As contingencies said, it's really about comfort, carrying one more kilo was
not a problem for me and even if I could spare spending more money having the
setup I needed and not being "stuck" when doing something is better than not
spending a few euros.

------
prody
Re portability with the Retina MacBookPro: I've had mine (15") for about 3
months now, and I have to say it's absolutely great.

The Air is very thin, and weighs in at 1.35Kg, but has a weak CPU and Intel
graphics.

The rMBP is not that extremely thin, but it's amazingly thin as well, a lot
thinner that the old MBPs and other laptops. It weighs only 2Kg which still
makes it very light to carry around. I'd say that for portability, the new 15"
rMBP is great. Light and small enough to carry but still powerful enough to
work on. Given that it has a i7 CPU, GF 640 graphics card, 16GB RAM, a retina
display, and almost the same battery life as the air, which is 6-7 hours.

You can host your VM's on a remote server if you like, but as far as choosing
Air vs rMBP, the rMBP is an obvious winner, except if you mind the higher
price tag.

~~~
fHbjKlf6
Thanks prody, thats really helpful. I've also got an awful habit of consuming
media content on my laptop whilst lying back in bed and on the sofa etc. Do
you ever do this and find the 15" cumbersome or heavy in these situations?

~~~
prody
It's light enough to carry in bed, and is really comfortable to use. I
actually do it very often, I even have a laptop bed table but I actually never
use it since the rMBP has such a nice solid feel to it.

Even considering bed use, I'd still go with a rMBP over an Air, for the rest
of the advantages.

The one thing you might find annoying is that the rMBP can get pretty hot when
under stress, e.g. if you watch a movie in bed, it will get warm around the
top rows of the keyboard. The way I hold it, it doesn't really bother me that
much, though after I got it I took it to an Apple store because I was worried
with how hot it would get. You can use something like smcFanControl to turn up
the fans, which will make it cool down fast, but it's nicer to use it in bed
without it making any noise at all.

If you'd like to see exactly how hot it gets, just go to an apple store, and
stress it's CPU a bit

e.g. open a terminal and pipe yes to dev null in 16 processes:

for i in {1..16}; do yes > /dev/null &; done

It should get really warm in ~2 minutes, you can walk around while this
happens. (when done, remember to kill the processes: killall yes)

------
rprime
I am in your exact same situation. What I am thinking to do is get a Macbook
Air and spin up Amazon EC2 instances if I need more power. This way I only pay
for what I use + I have a wide range of server instances I can use, from micro
to xlarge (68GB RAM which costs ~$30 per hour).

------
ajan
I have just moved all my servers to hetzner a few days ago. I'm running them
all on a Quad Core i7 with 32GB mem, it's an EX 4S. So far so good. Expect a
day to get the server and make sure you order any extra ip's when you order
the server otherwise you will have to wait a day for the ip. I needed one
extra ip because i'm running vmware free esxi hypervisor and it doesn't route
traffic to it's clients. So I have a virtualised firewall aswell it can be
handy being able to vpn into your virtualised environments. I also installed
an ubuntu desktop, working fine. I'm usually all about the terminal but the
esxi is controlled via an xp which is running on my retina macbook pro in
virtual box. (Esxi client is windows only).

~~~
dfamorato
You should never leave VMware management ports open to the internet.

I suggest you install a Windows XP, Win Server inside the virtual, turn on the
"automatic start up" on that VM, just after you the automatic start up of your
virtual FW and use RDP with a 2 factor authentication (duo security is free
and works beautifully), which now is you "management" machine.

Just my 2 cents on Virtual Security, since this is the setup I have :)

~~~
ajan
I totally agree with you. I did that when I had physical access to my own
servers. What do you if the firewall doesn't come up? That's my worry now that
I don't have direct access to the servers. Won't you end up being locked out?

------
blumentopf
You'd have much higher latency working on the remote VMs than on local VMs.
You'd also be dependent on Internet connectivity and you'd have to rely on
Hetzner's machines being available whenever you need to do your work. Shit
does happen.

~~~
fHbjKlf6
Pinging my existing Hetzner servers is around 45ms which is acceptable latency
for me. Reliability from Hetzner hasn't been great for our servers but for
what I need it for it is reliable enough.

~~~
white_devil
Reliability problems with Hetzner? I was under the impression they're a very
good host.

~~~
r4vik
I have never had a problem with hetzner doing this exact thing.

------
fatjokes
I have this set up and I love it. I didn't do this intentionally at first. I'm
a PhD student, so I have a powerful (well, was powerful at the time of
purchase) desktop in my office. I use to carry around a hulking laptop
(desktop replacement, basically) until one day I got a grant to buy a Mac Air.

I've never looked back.

Thanks to git, SSH, screen and Dropbox, syncing is super easy.

Once in awhile, it is a bit annoying when I need to process some large files
and I'm on a plane or something. Then the slowness of the Mac Air kinda shows.
But otherwise, it's perfect. It's also ideal since I can push jobs to my
desktop and use my Mac for personal stuff.

------
kevinprince
In my office we have been giving all dev's 13" full spec air's for about 2
years. Need to process a big data set etc? Do it on our EC2 setup. It works
better and people don't tend to have as much stuff on there machines.

------
fuzzleonard
I have been doing this for years, no worries. Latency is rarely going to be an
issue with remote desktop--you could get more than acceptable performance over
a 56K modem line at MBA resolutions way back in ancient times. And depending
on the Internet connection at the host performance may well be better than
running locally because the data is moving over their big pipe and only the
display is moving over your smaller pipe.

I would make sure to use virtualization software on my server that also runs
on my laptop so I could easily grab a local copy of a VM to take with me on a
flight, etc.

------
dotbill
At work we all use the higher spec 13" air's - keeping our dev environment
inside linux vm's that run locally.. I run a few windows vm's for front end
testing but we do have a beautiful windows machine sat in the corner too - as
long as I don't try and run everything at once its fine, with the benefit of
having the lightweight machine to take around the place..

Do you always stay connected to the internet when you need to work / how much
would it affect your productivity if you weren't able to access a remote
server? I imagine the latency would get annoying, even if it were minor.

------
blinkingled
Could you not easily upgrade the RAM to 16gb on the W500? Disk upgrade to
512GB should also be doable. (My x220 has 16Gb/512Gb and it does well for
similar vm based setup.) Or do you have an older model w500?

~~~
fHbjKlf6
No, the W500 is limited to 8GB. The W510 can take 16GB and the W520+ 32GB

~~~
JimmyL
Is it actually limited to 8GB, or is that just what Lenovo says/is willing to
support?

My x220 limited to 8GB in ever bit of published Lenovo literature, but I
bought 16GB of RAM at the same spec as the 8GB I have running now and
everything works fine.

------
gtklocker
I'd prefer the Air or even the Pro (there's really not much difference in
portability terms) and still work remotely. It's liberating to host everything
on the cloud. You don't have to worry about your local setup failing, the VMs
hogging resources and making your machine unusable (or destroying your
battery).

Right now I'm using a Macbook Pro 2012 w/o the Retina. I do all my development
on Linode servers, remotely. I get 6 hours of battery life and the machine is
a pleasure to work on. I wouldn't go back to my old Windows laptop, where I
used PuTTY to work.

~~~
jfb
Don't undersell the value of having a monstrously fast local machine; I much
prefer working on big datasets locally, as my machine is significantly faster
than nearly any EC2 node. And, it's portable and has a fantastic screen. And
works in the car or behind a spotty connection.

------
toyg
I have the same sort of problem, and went with the MBPr. I need large VMs
(6gb+ of ram) and travel a fair bit, so dragging around a big Dell was taking
its toll. The MBPr has been great, the only limit being disk space, 512GB fill
up quickly when each Windows image takes 40+ GBs. Also, the gorgeous screen, 6
months later, is now ghosting on me.

A colleague went with Air + VPN to his home lab, but that fails when your
customer works "in a bunker" (i.e. heavy-handed firewalls and proxies, common
in financial sectors).

~~~
nwh
Take your MacBook in and you'll get a replacement one, typically on the spot.
I know at least 3 people who've had their rMBP replaced due to ghosting.

~~~
willwhitney
Just to reiterate this - I had the exact same problem, and they replaced the
display immediately.

------
smoyer
I found this article really helpful when I realized all my work really
revolved around my servers. I've got an iPad with a really nice Logitech
Bluetooth keyboard and I love the fact that I can charge it overnight and use
it all day (just like my cell phone). Of course, there are more limitations
with my rig than you'd experience with a MacBook Air.

[http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/swap-your-laptop-ipad-
li...](http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/swap-your-laptop-ipad-linode)

~~~
rschmitty
This is what I've been doing when traveling and the Logitech Ultrathin is
relatively nice to type on.

Normally when I travel I need internet access anyways to do all my tasks (fix
and/or deploy something), so a local environment isn't very important to me. I
guess if I was some coffee house coder doing dev work I'd go for laptop

------
pandakar
The Air is a somewhat paradoxical machine in that it is extremely portable and
therefore perfect for travel, which is when you often lose the data connection
and therefore need more power to run VMs! You, however, don't have that
problem, if indeed you are most often working from home. In the case you
describe, definitely go for the Air, or wait a few months to see if the Air
gets a retina screen. I have an air, and it is difficult to consider going
back to anything even slightly bulkier.

~~~
pretoriusB
> _The Air is a somewhat paradoxical machine in that it is extremely portable
> and therefore perfect for travel, which is when you often lose the data
> connection and therefore need more power to run VMs!_

If you loose the connection you're screwed anyway, except if you work in some
long term isolated part of a system.

Else, you have no access to the repo for other people's commits, no mail or IM
contant to see what to work on etc, no way to check documentation/Stack
Overflow/etc, no way to connect and make changes to the deployment servers,
etc.

But it's not like people don't have access to the network on travels, anyway.
In most hotels, coffee-houses etc you can get a wifi connection easily, and
that's even in places like major African cities.

~~~
pandakar
Yeah, I was referring to those long haul airplane rides more than anything
else.

------
bjustin
Get the retina MBP. You won't have to think about setting up, backing up,
connecting to, updating, or securing a remote server if you do. Unless you
enjoy doing those things, you are better off saving that time and especially
effort for other things like family time.

I get awful headaches using anything more reflective than the MBA display, so
unfortunately Apple's retina notebooks are all unusable for me. It is
something to consider if you are coming from a high quality matte display like
a Thinkpad.

------
Yaggo
Assuming you will use the laptop for two years before selling it for 50% of
the original price, the server will cost extra 1200 eur (24x50) during that
period, making the Air + server option more expensive. Also, it's much more
comfortable to have everything running on localhost. No network lag issues, no
dependency on fast internet connection, less hassle, etc. Not to mention very
nice 2880*1800 display.

~~~
fHbjKlf6
Thanks, I already have the server capacity available and paid for so I
wouldn't incur any additional cost. You may be right about that resolution
though, I've never seen it. Thanks for the advice.

------
orf
A company I own rents virtual servers that run on Hetzner hardware. We had
terrible trouble getting Xen or KVM to run correctly on their network and
never got the networking to function correctly so we gave up and offered
OpenVZ only. This was a year or two ago, perhaps things have changed though.

On the positive side Hetzner are an excellent host, unbeatable value and
amazing support.

~~~
nezza-_-
Hu? I know quite a lot of people who run KVM & Xen at Hetzner without any
trouble.. Care to explain what your problems were?

------
maguay
FWIW, I run multiple virtual machines (Windows 8, 7, and XP, Ubuntu, and more)
on my 2012 MacBook Air 13". I'd run out of space fast using the internal SSD,
so instead I have a USB 3 external HD that I run the virtual machines from.
Now, I'm usually only running one virtual machine at a time, but really, it
runs very nicely, far faster than I would have expected.

------
Tyrant505
No apple store to check out the macbooks? I just ordered the rMBP, 2.6 16
256(best value I think) for $2499. The SSD is way to expensive to justify for
me, my data can be on an external hd or server. They are light and slim enough
for me. Movies and photos are amazing and its fast enough to load up
Starcraft2 or other games when I want.

~~~
fHbjKlf6
Actually no, the tiny island of Malta where i'm currently stationed has only
recently seen it's first retail Apple store (not official Apple store) and
they lock the laptops down for security reasons such that you cannot pick them
up to test how they feel and weigh in the hand. Crazy, I know.

------
jonheller
I'm in a similar situation. I commute 3 hours each day on mass transit and
love the Air in those situations, but I do miss the processor power.

I happen to have a pretty beefy PC at home, so I just RDC into that for my
Visual Studio and compiler needs (I think I'm one of about seven people who
develop .NET on a Mac!)

~~~
fHbjKlf6
During what activities do you miss processor power on the Air? or is it just a
general lack of responsiveness when booting, opening apps etc. and what is
your processor?

~~~
jonheller
Mostly waiting for Parallels to spin up and compiling in Visual Studio. I have
the 1.8 i7.

------
rtkwe
Why not just upgrade the W500? It'll be far cheaper than going to Mac and
renting out a server. For disk space you could get the SATA HDD bay for
storage and memory is simple to upgrade on Thinkpads (and better it doesn't
void your warranty, because Lenovo doesn't assume your an idiot).

~~~
fHbjKlf6
Because the W500 doesn't support more than 8GB ram and uses the old Sata 3Gb/s
interface which I believe would be a bottleneck with the latest SSD's.

~~~
justincormack
The SATA interface won't make a significant difference. It does at the margin
but not for normal use. If you are going to use remote servers why upgrade at
all?

~~~
fHbjKlf6
Primarily because I want to move to OSX and I'm looking for something more
portable than the beastly W500 (+- 30% heavier than rMBP)

------
eddiemunster
Tangentially related :- I use a Lenovo with 16gig ram for light dev work
running VMs', and I use a ExoPC running Win7 and Mouse with Borders for
viewing documentation/stackoveflow, and use an Ipad as a second monitor.

Basically means I have a 3 screen portable setup which works quite well.

------
SippinLean
MB Air are too big and heavy these days. Go for a Samsung Series 9 or
Chromebook, especially if you don't care about Retina. Certainly not the
MBPro, they're incredibly heavy and overpriced.

I do basically what you're proposing here, with a lightweight ultrabook, and
it works very well.

~~~
snooks
Is that supposed to be a joke or are you really being that ridiculous? MBA is
too big and heavy? Right... The Samsung Series 9 is typical Samsung poorly
made junk and a Chromebook is a whole different story. The MBP is not heavy or
overpriced for what you get. Show me something else in the PC World that
compares..oh thats right, there isn't anything.

------
martin
If you wanted mobility around the house while avoiding WAN latency and
reliability issues, you could buy a server and keep it in your house, rather
than renting it and accessing remotely. Then get the Air and use that to RDP,
SSH, etc. to the server.

------
spicyj
Seems like you could more or less test out the setup with your current machine
but VMs on a remote server so you could get an idea of the latency and see how
well it works for you.

It seems like a reasonable idea to me if you always have a fast connection.

------
kylebgorman
If you want portability, get an 11". Maybe you think you need those extra 2",
but I believe in time that you will find you are wrong, and never look back.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Two weeks a go, I purchased a MacBook Air. I leaned toward a 11" but found the
1366x768 resolution slightly too dense for the screen (135 ppi). I ended up
getting the 13" MBA, which has a 1440x900 screen (128 ppi). This machine I can
use at its native resolution, whereas with the 11" model I'd use it at a
scaled down resolution.

Before, I had a MacBook Pro with a HDD. I would use my iPad whenever I could,
because it'd be instantly on and feel faster in use. My MBA has a 256GB SSD
and it feels just as fast as my iPad.

Back to the main topic: I keep Windows VMs, version management and backups at
a dedicated server at Leaseweb. Local copies are kept on the MBA and a Mac
mini at home (where it's also backed up to external disks by SuperDuper). This
way, I can always choose to work on my iPad or MBA, files are accesible from
everywhere.

------
drivebyacct2
Linux Libvirt on the server, Linux libvirt on the Macbook Air. You can use
SPICE to connect to the server VMs. All built in, no setup, all as easy as
VMWare or the like would be. I'm using that with Cinnamon on Ubuntu 12.10 and
I'm in bliss.

Also, I think you will be very very very hard pressed to find anyone who owns
a Macbook air who would tell you to get anything else. People who don't own
them underestimate them and they're not anywhere near as underpowered as
people act like.

~~~
kaolinite
As someone who recently bought a Macbook Air, I really wish I'd spent a bit
more and gotten a retina MBP. I'm planning to get a 27" iMac soon because I'm
sick of the small screen.

