Skiddish
2023: The Year of Hardware Revolution
I want to document some of the seismic shifts happening in my hardware landscape and drill down into the “whys” and “hows” of these changes. Trust me, you’ll wanna hear about this.
Mechagodzilla: From Mac to Lenovo
For a solid 8 years, my daily driver has been the same Macbook Air. Yep, the same one that’s been dropped more times than I can count, had its battery swapped out, Wi-Fi upgraded, and storage awkwardly adapted to a more robust drive. I even used this Macbook to test an aluminum etching process involving beeswax, a laser on a 3D printer, and hydrochloric acid (it looks hideous, by the way). Despite my deep love for this slim beast, it was time for a change.
Enter the Lenovo X1 Yoga Gen 6—a second-hand gem that’s practically brand-new and wicked fast. While the Framework laptop caught my eye, it’s not quite up to par with Lenovo’s offering. And hey, this thing’s a 2-in-1—I can doodle on the screen like it’s 2012!
Ghidorah: My Workstation Beast
Meet Ghidorah, my former Ryzen 3600, RX 580 rig with 32GB DDR4 and an assortment of drives. I sold the rackmount case (no more rack, you see) and transplanted everything into a Define R5 case. The thing’s enormous, but hey, it fits all the drives. Snagged a Ryzen 5700X on sale, more NVMe storage, and a 7900XT that had me drooling since the GPU shortage. Now, I’m streaming games via Moonlight and diving into some high-end VR racing. Rad, isn’t it?
Baragon: The Living Room Dream
Goodbye sluggish Wyse thin client, hello M710Q. This tiny dynamo sits pretty in my TV cabinet, delivering hardware-accelerated game streaming without breaking a sweat. While I’ll need to upgrade the RAM and storage soon (90% utilization is a bit much), it’s doing a stellar job for now.
Rodan: Jack of All Trades
This one’s my middle-ground powerhouse, featuring a Ryzen 5600G, 32GB DDR4-2666, a rigged-up Tesla P4, and an array of storage options. While I adore its performance and hardware density (fitting 5 fans was a win), I must admit it’s a bit of an overkill for my needs. I rarely use it beyond its set timers and mostly leverage the Tesla for a dedicated Windows VM. Time to rethink the power consumption and consider a Synology NAS maybe?
Hedorah: The Backup Marvel
Last but not least, there’s the Odroid HC4—hosting a pair of 4TB drives in a custom case. I’m currently test-running it as an emergency backup solution. My only real concern is the OS running on an SD card, especially given my past Raspberry Pi hiccups.
OVH Cloud VPS: The Blogmaster
Can’t forget the VPS hosting this very blog, right? It’s also my reverse proxy and WireGuard host, making it easy to access all my services despite my ISP’s annoying CG-NAT issues.
In Conclusion
I’m stoked about these upgrades! They’ve turned my setup into something efficient, specialized, and, most importantly, power-bill-friendly. Here’s to doing some seriously cool stuff in 2023!