Building a Laptop

Hi guys, I know some of you are in IT or just know a lot about it so it would be good to see what people think.

I'm looking at building a high end laptop that has esata 2 connections the aim of the system is to be able to transfer large video files so anything from standard 1080 broadcast files through to 4/5k uncompressed raw video files which would be needed to copied, verified and then copied to 3 separate hard-drives a raid set raid 0 should be able to do this as well.

A lot of people are using Macbook Pros to do this, they are very limited in what they can do and only have USB 3 and Thunderbolt ports both of which aren't great for dealing with large amounts of data, plus the actual machine is £2399 to buy which is a lot of money so I'm pretty sure you can get a much better spec PC for the money or one with the same spec. The only purpose of this system will be for the above and editing that is it, I would normally look at working with 2k work flow or proxy files in Pro res or DNxHD which is Avid work flow.

I can easily build a desktop system, its just the laptop rig which I'm trying to work out, sometimes clients don't have the money for it or I need fly somewhere for work so a laptop is just easier! Any ideas Thanks

[TEC]

Err why would you unless you can build a hi-spec laptop cheaper than an OEM

Just go an buy one that fits your pocket, it'll be loads cheaper than what it would cost to buy the same spec hardware to build your own

Originally Posted by TEC

Err why would you unless you can build a hi-spec laptop cheaper than an OEM

Just go an buy one that fits your pocket, it'll be loads cheaper than what it would cost to buy the same spec hardware to build your own

This. Building your own only looks cheaper until you actually do it. I've not tried a laptop but I've built a couple of desktops and it's never as cheap as you think. Plus if things go weird, talking to myself for Tech Support can be a slow process

[Brettus]

Laptop parts aren't off the shelf interchangeable like desktop form factors. Can't really custom build one, you can however customize some very well specced machines from suppliers like Dell. Might be able to rival a macbook performance for a lower price point easy enough but you are still limited to whatever ports that manufacturers provide.

[ethariel]

alienware/dell are prossibly your best bet there, rock went to the wall. Self build laptop is fairly impossible given space constraints while a self build PC does often cost more than an off the shelf but you get exactly what you want with no compromise

[Mauler]

You may be better off with one of the smaller mATX form factors, I used to solely build Shuttle XPC PCs. You can get Shuttle carry bags to fit them exactly (also useful for lugging lots of smaller items about instead of the PC at times) so they're roughly as portable as laptops but because they're not flat and accept standard PC components you have many more possibilities for installing hardware (like space for a RAID array!).


http://uk.shuttle.com/products/produ...?categoryId=19


Take a look, I've not used any for a while but I loved them when I did!

Originally Posted by DJFridge

This. Building your own only looks cheaper until you actually do it. I've not tried a laptop but I've built a couple of desktops and it's never as cheap as you think. Plus if things go weird, talking to myself for Tech Support can be a slow process

It all depends what parts you are buying. Most pre-built manufactures will skimp on certain components. E.g motherboard, psu, RAM, hdd. When you build it yourself, you're looking at the upper end motherboards, cpus and ram. So whilst the price seems to be probably roughly the same, you're actually putting better components in the PC.

Take a look at scan.co.uk - they are very good and generally always where I go for components.

On a side note, I bought myself a Macbook pro (2011) a few months ago, got it off ebay. I've since replaced the Hdd with an SSD and upgraded the memory to 16gb. Cost me £700 in total, the peformance increase after these two upgrades huge!

Not sure why you think that Thunderbolt isn't great for large amounts of data. That's what it's designed for.

The MacBook Pro has Thunderbolt 2 which carries two 10Gbps channels (20Gbps in total). Compare that to esata 2 which is only 3Gbps.