Voice of the DBA

Tag: hardware

  • Laptop Recommendations for 2019

    Every few years I upgrade my laptop. I try to get through three years with them, and I’ve had some good success. At the same time, I’ve also had some wear out sooner, especially with the amount of travel that I do some years. I had one laptop last just a year before it started to constantly crash on me. That one was just out of warranty, which was a shame. Since then I’ve usually paid extra for a warranty to get a couple years of service out of each machine.

    It’s not quite that time for me, but it’s getting close. My laptop is about 2 1/2 years old and I’m starting to have some thermal issues. Changes in temperature often cause a crash when I come out of hibernation, which isn’t what a traveling presenter likes to see. I’m also starting to have poor battery performance. A full charge recently netted me only about 3.5 hours before the battery warning came on at 20% left.

    I have been pleased with my HP Spectre x360 model right now. It’s held up well and I’ve enjoyed using it. The arrow keys are a little oddly placed for me, but overall, everything else has worked well. There’s a new model, which is one of those I’m considering, but I am keeping an open mind.

    This week, I’m asking you what models you might recommend that you’ve used. One you’ve owned or had a friend own that seems to perform well. Keep in mind that I travel quite a bit, so durability and weight matter.

    I used to want a 32+GB RAM machine, but these days I do more in the cloud or with smaller demos, so I think 16GB is really the sweet spot for me. A fast CPU and 512GB-1TB storage is nice. I’ve done well with 512 across the last two years, but you never know how things will change, so a 1TB is something I’m considering. As much as I’ve enjoyed USB-C, I still sometimes like the convenience of USB-A, especially when on the go and not wanting to pull out some sort of adapter (like on a plane).

    Let me and others know this week which models have worked well for you. While many of us don’t necessarily get the choice of brand, some do, and many might be able to influence the model that they receive. Most of us want a laptop we enjoy using, and having a few recommendations gives us confidence that we’ll choose one that works well for the next few years.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Unreliable Data Sensors

    I like data, and I like cars. I think there have been some really creative and useful integrations between the two. I also think there have been a lot of gimmicks and poorly architect-ed systems, including those that insecurely allow access to vehicular systems. I even worry (very slightly) about the integrations of networks in airplanes.

    The US NTSA has said no to cameras and displays in place of side view mirrors. These are on the new Audi e-tron SUV, and would use a camera and a display on the door to show the rear view. While this certainly might help mileage, and it could allow for technology to perhaps sharpen or identify something in the display, I also worry about a couple issues. If you want to know what this looks like, here’s a review that shows this.

    First, there is the safety issue. I find backup cameras, even very new clear ones, to be harder to look at than a rear view mirror. Granted, these do show a view the mirror can’t show, but I wouldn’t want to use these when I was moving at anything above a slow 5mph backup speed. The ability to gauge distance is much harder. I would worry that I’ve both look in the wrong place, and also struggle to see the display in some weather conditions. Not to mention potential dirt, water, etc. on the camera lens. Already my backup camera is often too dirty to use.

    The second issue, and this is the bigger one for me, is that this technology isn’t anywhere near reliable enough to use in this situation. While it might work well at any point in time, I find too many issues with advanced electronics in cars that fail more often and with a much higher cost. At just over 4 years, when the warranty in my current car expired, one of the cameras in the side mirror failed. While it doesn’t appear to be hard to fix this, it’s a an expensive part (US$400). And an annoying, albeit unimportant, error on the display.

    I’m all for new technology, and I think things like the lane change warning and other tools are fantastic. ABS and traction control are lifesavers. Backup cameras have saved me or others a few times. Adjusting mirrors and other responsive improvements are fantastic, though I certainly want to ensure these devices let me know if there is any failure. Others have been less exciting, like locks that don’t operate without power.

    We know there are issues with lots of data, and we know that sensor data also needs to be checked and verified, as well as occasionally discarded. Vehicles have dramatically opened up our world and given billions abilities to access goods and services they might never otherwise see. However, there are safety issues that should override any new technology that hasn’t proven itself not only to operate at a very high reliability level, but also in a way that operators can easily adapt to using.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Grounded

    Technology has brought some challenges to travel. There is the bomb threat, of which I have no way to gauge how much of a potential problem this is on a daily basis. Certainly security at airports has changed over the years, and there is better scanning technology, but would anyone really be able to detect a bomb in a bag? Do we check all bags? I doubt anyone does, but perhaps I’m wrong. Either way, I hope this isn’t anything I need to worry about in my travels.

    I do carry electronics, usually a laptop, though sometimes two, along with the various supporting plugs and wires for charging it and my mobile. There was a time when I thought about getting a BRIX for demos, but with the requirements that security might make me turn it on, I decided not to get one. These days, with all the cloud options, I’m less worried about carrying a large amount of hardware, but I still need a laptop. When I saw a story about laptops being banned from flights, I wondered what I’d do.

    In this case, Macbooks are supposedly being banned if they have a certain battery issue. This came about quickly, and it’s likely that there were some business people in the middle of a trip when the ban was announced. That might have prevented them from flying, which would be quite a hassle. I remember when the Note was banned from some flights. I never met anyone that was inconvenienced, and likely plenty of people flew with their devices hidden in bags, so perhaps it wasn’t a big deal.

    I wonder about two things here. One, are we building new devices and technology that aren’t designed well from a safety standpoint? Most of us don’t have large servers in our offices anymore, so we might not care, but our other devices, which we use to get work done, perhaps might not be robust. In that case, I hope that businesses might have programs to help employees quickly replace devices if there are issues. Being on call and not having a device would be a nightmare.

    The other item is one I wonder about both for software and hardware. Do we make it easy enough to know what version of a device we have? I’ve owned Macbooks, and trying to determine what model you have is a chore. I can’t imagine that TSA or other security agencies could actually a) determine if you had a banned device, and b) know if you’ve had it repaired.

    I’d hate to think that companies will just build devices without making it easy to understand which generation of a device you own. This can already be a problem in not only computers, but other products like autos, where changes might be implemented in the middle of a model year. With the move to cloud and other rented software, are we going to have issues here? Azure SQL Database hasn’t changed the version in some time, despite there being changes to the code.

    Maybe it doesn’t matter, especially if old features don’t disappear. It does seem like something that we ought to do a better job of tracking, especially as it can be easy for us to have a model, but tag on a version number to easily allow a user to discern one from the other.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Lots of data in RAM

    I remember buying my first computer after college. At the time I was working part time and in graduate studies part time. My aging high school era Apple II wasn’t capable of handling the load, not to mention its 300baud modem wasn’t a lot of fun. I could likely have gotten a faster modem with a serial connection, but most of the modern Internet providers wanted Windows or a Macintosh OS.

    I decided to just spend the money and get a computer. Being a bit of a geek, I wanted to customize things a bit and get the most bang for my buck. At that time, I paged through Computer Shopper, looking for deals on parts and trying to find the cheapest 486 CPU I could. I made various choices, one of which was the RAM. I remember thinking hard at that time about whether I could get by with 2 1MB modules or did I need to go ahead and max out the motherboard and get 4. These days I think about GB, not MB, and 2 or 4 isn’t a good number.

    One of the first servers I built at one job was with 8MB chips, getting 32MB into a machine, which felt like a lot. Certainly more than I’d ever had in a computer before. I also remember helping write a PO for a Netware server that cost US$250,000, one with 256MB of RAM. It was the size of a washing machine and filled with 32MB HDDs, making it by far the largest machine I’d seen to date.

    That’s a nostalgic view back to 1992, when I was working on my CNE certification. I always think about that large, very expensive machine when I see some leap of hardware. This past week, it was a DD4 Gen-Z memory module that has 256GB of RAM in a stick. That’s not only a larger scalar value than the RAM sticks I started working with, but it’s an order of magnitude more memory. Imagine 4 of these sticks giving you a terabyte of RAM in a desktop. Who among us wouldn’t want this for our desktop SQL Server development?

    This level of tech isn’t ready for most of us, but it’s not that far off. 32GB laptops aren’t common, but they are easy to find. You can even get 64GB of RAM now if you want to. How long before we see 128GB+ desktop and laptop machines? I have no idea, as we seem to be in a bit of a hardware lull. Most developers run 8GB or 16GB, and it seems like this has been the standard for quite a few years.

    I don’t know if we’ll start to see some vendors pushing to add more RAM. Certainly the cloud has changed things with lots of processing and storage occurring off the local system. At this point I’d expect that three years after buying my last laptop, I’d be able to get 32GB in the same form factor for the price I paid a few years ago, but that’s not the case. The machine supports 32GB, but it’s pricey, the same price it was 3 years ago.

    I wonder how many of you are still power hungry, wanting more powerful machines. Or has the level of performance you get from your i7 on Windows or OSX been good enough the last few years? I think this machine works great for me, whether running VMs or containers. 16GB does the job well, and I’d look to get the same level of hardware when I replace this laptop.

    Steve Jones