Laptop and expansion box questions???

[P***@Chicago.net]

I live in two locations: Rhode Island & Texas. I intend to buy a high
powered laptop (probably Lenovo) so that all my apps are on one computer.
That way, I'll have the laptop at whichever location I'm at. My problem
is that I would like something like an expansion box so that I can use
and/or change some hardware (like a graphics card) when I choose. The
laptop is not conducive to this. If I did this, I'd have a duplicate
expansion box in both locations. I'm thinking: the best of both worlds:
I can have my PC while traveling - and not have to travel with a desktop.
Overall, I'm thinking this would be both practical and cheaper than a
desktop. Lenovo doesn't have what I want. Does my idea have merit? If
so, are there any limitations to what I can put in the expansion box and
be able to connect to it? Please give me some ideas. Thanks......

[Andrew Smallshaw]

Post by P***@Chicago.net
Overall, I'm thinking this would be both practical and cheaper than a
desktop. Lenovo doesn't have what I want. Does my idea have merit? If
so, are there any limitations to what I can put in the expansion box and
be able to connect to it? Please give me some ideas. Thanks......

Please use paragraphs - it makes your text a lot easier to read
and to comment on. Remember most people will be reading what you
write from a screen.

As for your question I very much doubt you'll find what you are
looking for. A few laptop docking stations have expansion slots
in them but I've never seen any witth anything faster than plain
PCI - that is rather slow for a modern GPU. Added to that it is
likely to be fairly expensive especially for a top brand like
Lenovo.

My inclination would be towards a pair of similar if not identical
desktops with a removable hard drive caddy. Pull out the HDD and
take it with you popping it into the other machine when you arrive.

For Windows machines they should be as similar as possible to avoid
lots of driver installation and so on at each lcoatino - it should
be automatic after the first time but still time consuming. Added
to that you may run into licensing difficulties on more recent
Windows versions if too much hardware changes at once. In contrast
the free Unix systems runing generic kernels will take even quite
dramatic hardware changes in their stride.

[P***@Chicago.net]

Ideally, I would have IDENTICAL desktops - one at each location. Should
I consider any problems by taking out my hard drive and transporting it?
There's also the backup drive consideration.

On Wed, 7 Jul 2010 21:11:08 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Smallshaw

Post by Andrew Smallshaw

Post by P***@Chicago.net
Overall, I'm thinking this would be both practical and cheaper than a
desktop. Lenovo doesn't have what I want. Does my idea have merit? If
so, are there any limitations to what I can put in the expansion box and
be able to connect to it? Please give me some ideas. Thanks......

Please use paragraphs - it makes your text a lot easier to read
and to comment on. Remember most people will be reading what you
write from a screen.
As for your question I very much doubt you'll find what you are
looking for. A few laptop docking stations have expansion slots
in them but I've never seen any witth anything faster than plain
PCI - that is rather slow for a modern GPU. Added to that it is
likely to be fairly expensive especially for a top brand like
Lenovo.
My inclination would be towards a pair of similar if not identical
desktops with a removable hard drive caddy. Pull out the HDD and
take it with you popping it into the other machine when you arrive.
For Windows machines they should be as similar as possible to avoid
lots of driver installation and so on at each lcoatino - it should
be automatic after the first time but still time consuming. Added
to that you may run into licensing difficulties on more recent
Windows versions if too much hardware changes at once. In contrast
the free Unix systems runing generic kernels will take even quite
dramatic hardware changes in their stride.

[Ron Hinds]

Post by P***@Chicago.net
Ideally, I would have IDENTICAL desktops - one at each location. Should
I consider any problems by taking out my hard drive and transporting it?
There's also the backup drive consideration.

If both desktops are configured identically (i.e., same applications - in my
proposed scenario, hardware wouldn't matter) then all you need to be mobile
is *your* data. Get an external USB drive (let's assume that will become the
E: drive - D: will probably be a CD/DVD). Then, configure all of your apps
(e.g. Word) to save data to the E: drive. Then all you have to do is unplug
the USB drive, take it to the other PC, plug it in, and all of your data is
ready to go.