total personal system

reeve

Baseband Member
Messages
46
hey people. im a new member on here so please be nice.

i got myself a nice laptop off ebay, its a toshiba satellite pro L100-09. 1.6ghz processor 1gb ram (upgraded to 2gb) shared video ram dvd burner. yardi yardi.

anyway so i never really take my laptop out and it gets used mostly as a desktop machine. so i figured insteas=d of buying a desktop machine to build the system i have always wanted why not cannabalise my laptop? so i did!

my lappy has a 15" screen, a VGA output that allows both to be used at the same time. so i linked up a 15" flat screen to the vga port, whacked a usb touch panel on it unde rthe bevel, plugged in a usb DVI graphics adaptor and hooked that up to my 19" wide screen and modded that out with a touch panel as well.

sat my laptop behind my desk t its the power button and screen poping up and can use all three screens at once. not bad yeah?

well it doesnt stop there. a gyration GP100 wireless micro keyboard with airmouse, 7port usb hub, external dvd burner with lightscribe, usb 7.1 sound card, hd webcam, usb video captures for wireless cctv and more.

next on the list of things is another usb graphics card and a 7" touch screen. but this little screen will be purely for JUST desktop icons, keeps my 3 main monitors clean and tidy and keeps my shortcuts nicely organised and accesible at all times. a nice touch i think.

but heres my problem, i have an internal 500gb harddrive. and im always running out of space.

so i want to build a rack to house 8 2tb 2.5" hdds.

reason for 8 is difference things, music, programs, videos, pictures, documents and so on. now i was thinking of building it all from scratch, making the box, adding a PSU and using molex to sata adaptors to power them, adding in the fans and stuff for cooling, but im stuck on running all 8 hdds to a single usb connection without the need of another usb hub. suggestions?

any comments on the system will be appreciated too. i'll throw up some pics when i get a chance.
 
Overkill much? Just build a cheap desktop. It'll destroy that thing.

BTW, not trying to be rude, I'm trying to help you out.

what do you mean destroy? it may not have the fastest processor or large ram but its pretty damn powerful for what it gets used for. the ability to control so much more from touch instead of keyboard and mouse is freeing. also less risk of RSS. especaily how my monitors are mounted. have to reach about alot

also do not have the space to put a desktop tower. even if it wasa micro unit. where my desk is its very space limited which is why the laptops tucked down the back, monitors are wall mounted and other things like the keyboard reciever, usb hub, sound card web cam and others are also mounted to the supports that hold up my shelf
 
Well it is not just processing power. For one thing, if you go with external hard drives, they will be slow as hell because you are limited to USB. Your external video cards, are also extremely sub-par, compared to anything in a desktop, even the IGP in most motherboards. Then, there is the fact that no matter what, it is a slow laptop that will need replacing eventually, since you cannot upgrade most parts.

Post full specs and we will get a better idea, but from the looks of things, I could put together a much more suited desktop for $300-400.
 
you may be able to but i do not have £300-£400 to spend on building another system that WILL cost that much for the same specs that this laptop has. trust me, i've looked into that one already and found that its finachailly more viable to use my laptop until i can afford a larger system to upgrade to. which will happen eventually. but all ports are usb 2.0 so that helps a little and the hdds are for data storage. seeing as i rarely watch anything on my system. it gets transfered to the xbox via mem stick cause cba with streaming it. anyway dont take me for a newbie to computers, been with them along time. the usb graphics cards serve quite happily and i dont have any problems with lagg for video or touch screen responce.

to be honest with out i think you underestimate the L100. if a system is properly maintained there should be very little reduction in speed, and i keep this system well maintained lol
 
I see your point, it just seems that you could've built a desktop for about what all the upgrades cost you.

I know that a system will not slow down much if you maintain it well, but programs are getting increasingly demanding, so eventually an upgrade will be needed. It kinda depends on what you are using the system for.

USB 2.0 is incredibly slow. I would not be daisy chaining hard drives on it. You need eSATA at the least. Do you by chance have a PCMCIA slot? You could always install an eSATA card, though idk how restrictive the laptop's chipset will be for this.
 
i got a pcmcia. did have a usb card in but it drove me nuts. to be honest i havent even begun building the rack yet so any suggestions towards better performing that will be useful.

the systems pretty fast and works great for the space its in and gets used for, also the underside of my desk area is a prone spot for cat hair dust and so on to gather which would work its way into a desktop tower as on the floor is only real place for it to sit. and even tho this place is kept spotless the cats moulting as weather is warming up lol. shoulda known better than to get a cat, shoulda stuck with my reptiles lol.
 
That is no reason not to get a desktop. It'd be handled with $5 worth of fan grilles.

I have to ask, why on earth do you need 16 terabytes? Sounds like a noobish upgrade to me. What can you possibly be storing that requires that much space?
 
monthly o/s hdd backups, music collections, pictures oh god theres to much, and its basicaly a measure to try and safegaurd against the need to upgrade.

think of it as a vaccine instead of a cure. put liek that not so noobish eh? lol

oh also it means that my internal o/s is purely software and isnt slowed down at all by data taking up space which allows me to maximise virtual ram and alike settings.
 
You do realize that you can delete things, right? lol.

You realize that 8TB is 16 years of music at standard MP3 quality? It's just so overkill that I cannot describe it.

The only way I could possibly see anyone having a need for that much storage would be if they were backing up a massive Blu-ray collection. Even then, that is a crapload of movies, way more than anybody would have normally.

I find it odd that you have the money to waste on all these hard drives, but you want to stick to a laptop with them because a desktop costs too much.
 
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