Those of you with multiple computers that fill specific roles or are for specific purposes, what are they? How do they fit in tandem with your other systems? How did you arrive at the decision to set the systems up in the way that you did? Thanks
2 laptops: 1- 18.4" laptop (desktop replacement), my multipurpose machines (surfing, testing security softs, watching movies, working with Office, etc...). it stay mostly at home or when i go somewhere when i will stay long time. 2- 11.3" mini-laptop , used when i need to be very mobile (only for surfing, watching videos, and working on Office ); its CPU/RAM is too low to do anything else. Both have Win10 and are synced via a MS account. I live between 2 countries so i don't have needs for any desktop machines.
I have lots of computers, mostly laptops. Some have specific jobs and some are more to play and experiment with. I didn't really plan it in any way, it's just that the hardware keeps getting cheaper, I like it and keep buying more, and I'm really good at getting what I want and need out of it. Most of the real work, such as it is, is done on older systems with more stable OSes and play and experiments get done on the newer machines. Why am I going to waste the power of a quad core i7 to run a printer? And since I actually make money with my printer, stability is important as well so I'm not going to be testing anything on that laptop.
I have an old Apple II I occasionally use for journaling and writing. It's reliable, simple, full of nostalgia, and has no security issues.
I have four laptops that I use, all running Windows 10. 1. Lenovo ThinkPad T400, 14.1". I use this computer daily, for web browsing, downloading, and also web design and data recovery. 2. Toshiba Qosmio G30 for wathching vidoes at it has a nice high resolution 17" 1920x1200 screen, and a rotary volume control too which I find handy. That's all I use it for. 3. Lenovo ThinkPad T410 14.1" I use this laptop for DJing. 4. Lenovo ThinkPad X61s - 12.1" This is a backup laptop for when I DJ, in the unlikely case my main laptop fails. The small size makes it an ideal second laptop. I have a Western Digital TV Live networked media player which a USB hard drive connected that I use to transfer files between laptops 1 and 2. Often, I will just copy a file to the hard drive, and then access it directly from there rather than copying it to 2nd laptop.
Custom desktop: Gaming, programming, web browsing, everything. Custom server: Network shares for media and backup stuff. Desktop images get saved there, media gets backed up to another drive on the server as well as Crashplan. I run some VMs on it for things like Mumble, game servers, development servers, etc. Laptop: Doesn't really get much use these days. I only use it when I go visit my parents, or for the bi-yearly hackathon. Retina MacBook Pro: This isn't really 'my' laptop, but it's the one my work gave me to dev on. I obviously use it daily and it's my first real experience with OSX. There are some things that are just DUMB about it, but there are some benefits too. I would never switch to OSX, but it has opened my eyes to linux and I've been messing around with it as a result. I've converted my server VM's to Linux and I'm preparing to convert the host os of my server to Linux sometime soon.
Custom desktop: Everything. Laptop (HP Pavilion G6 Series): I bought it for school (College), and now that I'm done, I mostly use it at night in bed to browse the web, watch shows, etc. Sometimes I'll bring it to my CCNA classes to pass time during breaks. A few other desktops that just lay around. One of them used to be our old family computer, the other one was the old, old family computer, another one is my old grandparent's computer and I have another one I brought back from work that used to have ESXi but now I don't know what to do with it.
I mainly use my Windows 10 gaming laptop at home, and Nexus 5 / iPod Touch 6 on the go. The reason I have 2 devices on the go is because my Nexus 5 was running out of RAM and storage, I was running too many apps in the background (including ~5 messengers) while gaming and playing music. I actually play more mobile games than desktop... I don't like replacing phones (or any device that has a lot of personalized content) even with root backups (even then it won't be the same), and the iPod touch was cheaper. The Nexus 5 is paired with my handy LG G Watch, and the iPod touch with my previous smartwatch (Pebble). As for what I do at home, it's mainly casual stuff like browsing the web, watching videos, and whatnot. I do often enjoy more technical pursuits such as participating here, running virtual machines, tweaking the system, blogging, maintaining the security list, etc. My MacBook, Android/Windows dual-boot tablet, and Chromebook are mainly for hobbies, though I sometimes let family members use them, or I use them myself when others are using my main device(s). I do prefer my gaming laptop though, cause I've pretty much permanently attached another monitor and whatnot to it. *Specifically chose iPod Touch cause I wanted to try it all again I guess (as in all common types of OS). And the MacBook is useful when dealing with it and my family's iPads, because I refuse to install iTunes on Windows ever again.
I use only one desktop for web browsing and video gaming. I'm not a hardcore gamer, I only play about 5 games. On the web I spend most of my time reading news (world, showbiz, sports, IT, financial) and with online stock trading.
Samsung series 7 Chronos , 15.6" LED Notebook , this is my main machine which I take with me in my work environment. Asus 17” notebook which I use as a desktop replacement (8 years old) A very old Compaq Presario notebook B3800 used on the house treadmill No house network, and no desktops for more than 11 years.
