

Garry Newman's Portable Workstation: A Hard Drive - thetabyte
http://garry.tv/post/21486292531/portable-computer

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joezydeco
I'd like to know more about the hardware. Does Garry have identical computers
on both sides of his commute?

It's my decades-long experience with Windows that the moment you swap an
existing boot drive into a new/different PC, Windows completely shits the bed
with driver mismatches and incompatible versions.

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warpspeed
Let's not forget that most licenses will freak out and stop working when they
see new hardware. That's the Microsoft Genuine Software Advantage™

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frou_dh
After I installed the new NVIDIA graphics driver yesterday to play Tribes
Ascend, Microsoft-Security-Essentials informed me that it had ceased running
because my Windows was not genuine. A second reboot seemed to placate it.

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bonzoesc
Doesn't the frequently changing hardware play hell with Windows activation and
other DRM systems that track serial numbers and MAC addresses?

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georgemcbay
I am not an expert on Windows Activation, but I think that this depends upon
what kind of license you have. I know Technet/MSDN install keys allow you to
use the same key on up to X different machine "fingerprints" depending upon
what type of subscription you have, so in this case I think he'd be OK. It
should just look like 2 of X activations on different machines.

If you tried doing the same with an off-the-shelf Windows 7 upgrade install or
an OEM install, I'm pretty sure you'd run into problems, though, unless the
two machines were identical from the point of view of Windows Activation.

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gouranga
No it's absolutely fine. Once activated, it's pretty much 100% ok if you move
it around.

It used to be an issue in Vista days but no longer - they have relaxed most
requirements.

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AdamGibbins
Lenovo do multiple ThinkPads that have docks that support 3 monitors. Example:
<http://shop.lenovo.com/us/laptops/thinkpad/t-series/t520> and
[http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/product-and-
parts/detail.pag...](http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/product-and-
parts/detail.page?LegacyDocID=MIGR-72873)

Lack of SSD surprises me, one would think Gary Newman (creator of Garry's Mod)
had need.

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bonzoesc
> Lack of SSD surprises me, one would think Gary Newman (creator of Garry's
> Mod) had need.

I don't know if a quality SSD would play well with the size of modern games.

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rprime
Most mid-high level gamers use SSDs already, myself included, yes you cannot
store TBs of games but why do that when you have Steam.

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bonzoesc
Because a huge hard drive is presumably cheaper than the Garry Newman time
spent deciding to remove games instead of working on fun projects.

It's the same reason I simply archive every email instead of deciding what to
keep and what to trash.

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ja27
When I was doing a lot of Windows development and upgrading laptops a lot, I
reached the point that I just imaged a laptop to a VMWare image. I could copy
that image back and forth anywhere I needed to work - home desktop, work
laptop, work ESX server, etc.

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icebraining
_in the end I thought the whole system was flawed because I’d be transferring
stuff from the office via my home internet connection._

I don't get what he means by this...?

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TazeTSchnitzel
He's running an Active Directory server on his home network, so it would be
using his slow home internet connection to upload data.

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icebraining
Oh, right, I didn't consider that AD would only upload stuff when he logs in.

I don't quite get why doesn't he use something that syncs before he reaches
the office, though. Setting up the machine to power-on automatically a couple
hours earlier and syncing using Dropbox, Unison, etc is not that hard.

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goggles99
To those wondering about hardware differences - Just run your OS in VM. With
modern processors you won't be able to tell the difference performance wise.
Also, it's easy to make a backup of the image when you are wrapping up at
work/home. This way, if you lose the drive or it fails - you will have a
backup of your most recent work. I have seen people doing this for at least
the last 10 years (I am surprised it is news).

I agree with what some others have posted about using an SSD with eSata or
USB3. This really is a great way to go. I wold recommend also throwing some
kind of encryption in the mix (either encrypt the hard drive or use BitLocker
or something comparable withing the OS since you will no doubt be carrying
sensitive data or intellectual property around.

