I’ll agree it’s not that expensive but I’ll side with Daniel on the “impractical” part. Why not just invest 2x the money for a proper dev desktop machine (4TB NVMe SSD, 128GB RAM) and have everything inside the case? Even if it’s extra 6 hard drives. Most mid-tower cases can handle that.
My current Linux server is one of those cute Dell mini factor computers (book-sized, if not smaller) and most of its drives are external. When I attached the 4th HDD via USB to it I told myself “this is getting ridiculous”.
For digital nomadism I’d say having a powerful machine either at home or inside a rented VPS and then using your laptop to remote into it wins out on the pragmatism factor… IMO.
At this point Apple is truly practical only on the laptop front. M-series MacBooks are lightweight, quiet and with a very long-lasting battery. The perfect laptop.
Mac Minis are very nice machines but not extendable enough. I’d only get one if I’m very sure that I’ll not need to add more storage – or any other periphery.
Desk clutter does become a concern at one point, I found.
If we talk about remote storage, then I think it’s notable to mention that for cellular connections this is not feasible if we talk about storing/retrieving large amount of files, as even in my country where high speed cellular internet is dirt cheap, you will pay 30$ for 100GB of traffic.
I don’t disagree with your scenario per se. I simply think it becomes physically intractable and annoying to manage USB / TB4 external disks at one point.
And the Mac Mini is a classical Apple trap: the baseline option is cheaper but who will go for the baseline option? 250GB SSD is almost nothing and many devs will need more eventually. And don’t get me started on 8GB RAM…
As for macOS vs. Linux, eh. You know I am still in the Apple ecosystem and that’s still an informed choice, right? But I believe both of us agreed that Apple’s pull is getting weaker with time. They might not have reached the tipping point for many but that point is fast approaching for reasons we already discussed.
I don’t see this an issue at all. Even less of an issue if you’re away.
If you really hate the look of them get a thunderbolt monitor and hook them up to that (I had several drives behind my monitor and a single cable to my Mac - completely clutter free ) or mount them under your desk, or get a dock, or unit. Plenty of options.
As mentioned in a couple of these threads now, just buy the base machine and run macOS of an external drive, it’s the cheapest way to run a Mac and 16GB is plenty for most people
All of that is viable but not very future-proof so it’s no longer good enough for me. Whoever finds it good, more power to them. I am no longer in that group is all.
And yeah I am not looking forward to fiddling with Linux, that’s why I am taking it slow. Lately burned about 3 hours configuring my KDE Plasma desktop environment as I like it and am 50% there. Might be another month before I get in that mood again.
Sure but we’re not talking streaming gigabytes from your home NAS, right? We’re talking just RDP or any other remoting protocol traffic which shouldn’t be much. And the occasional rsync, too.
From my limited experience, something like 5-10MB an hour when coding more intensely.
I’d argue it’s more future proof because your hard drives can be used with your next computer, but each to their own - if your current set-up/Linux works for you that’s all that should matter
I would argue they are reusable only insofar as they are not getting annoying to manage. I already have 2x NVMe SSDs at 250GB each and I have to use them with external closures, otherwise they are just e-waste, and I don’t like the amount of boxes behind my Mac already. I really would like to buy a motherboard with a lot of PCIe lanes at one point and reuse an old CPU and 32GB DDR-3 RAM that are laying around to assemble my next server. We’ll see.
As said, I am not disagreeing with you here, I just started hating physical clutter and I can no longer make myself be okay with it.
Like you, I am a big fan of reuse! One of my ZFS-based NAS redundancy disks is 1TB… dating back from 2013 or so. All my disks are used until they physically fail.
But I believe both of us agreed that Apple’s pull is getting weaker with time. They might not have reached the tipping point for many but that point is fast approaching for reasons we already discussed.
) or mount them under your desk, or get a dock, or unit. Plenty of options.
I really would like to buy a motherboard with a lot of PCIe lanes at one point and reuse an old CPU and 32GB DDR-3 RAM that are laying around to assemble my next server. We’ll see.
All my disks are used until they physically fail.
