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Changing from a desktop to laptop, need advice on the build.
Hi all, I currently run SQL Server 2008R2 and use my desktop as a local sever. In addition to running queries against this local server I also run numerous excel spreadsheets (some as large as 100MB) that are dynamically connected to said SQL databases. My orgs IT team have asked that I switch from a desktop to a laptop and I am a little concerned that my daily workload will not run as smoothly as it currently does. The current desktop have two xeon (E5-2620 @ 2.1GHz) processors with a combined 24 cores and I also have 16GB of RAM. The laptop i am being offered has a single i5 and 16GB of RAM. In your opinions, will the laptop cut it in terms of performance? If not would love to hear some recommendations for a potential ideal build. Thanks so much for your responses. James.
Honestly, my first recommendation would be to get it off of your laptop period. If it's a production related, meaning that >0 business processes depend on that instance being online, get it to a more production grade environment. Use virtualization. Buy an actual server grade bare-metal box if needed. If you don't have a choice, you'll probably see a performance hit as you went down in processor cores. I don't know how your server was configured or what exactly is being run on it, but I'd suspect that you'll see CPU usage increase. There are, however, a number of factors that play in the performance of SQL so that's only one aspect of it.
Thanks for the input John. The database is not production related, it's simply a way for me to access and manipulate data. So given that the i5 has five cores I can expect to see a drop in performance which is pretty much what I expected the outcome of this move to a laptop would produce. Lets see if I can get IT to pony up some more $ and get a higher end laptop. :)
If you are manipulating data for a business process in any sense, then it's production related. At least it is in my opinion. ;-) If you have the ability to utilize a VPN type of connection, then you could work on things even remotely. Just my .02 on it.
I agree with John that, if this is effectively a production server, it should be on a proper server. Then your machine only needs to cope with the Excel side of it and that i5 sounds reasonable for that. If you want to keep the SQL Server, I suggest you agree to try the laptop and, if it doesn't perform, go back to the desktop. You could do all sorts of PerfMon monitoring and estimate based on that but it's easier to just try it. I'm curious why they want you to move to a laptop. If the desktop is working fine, why are they bothering to spend money changing things? Is there another factor involved here maybe?
The reason for the change is so that I have flexibility to work from home, and so that I can take my computer to meetings etc.
Things to Do Before Using a New Computer
Review the Update Settings.
Check the Power Plan.
Battery Health and Calibration.
Rename Your PC.
Create a Recovery Drive.
Uninstall Bloatware and Turn Off Annoyances.
Create a Standard User Account with Password.
Create a System Restore Point.
Regards,
Will
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