USB-C Was Supposed to Simplify Our Lives. Instead, It’s a Total Mess

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And using the USB-C port as a video port, you have to give up system RAM for the video. I prefer dedicated video RAM with a dedicated video chip.

What are you talking about? And where did you get that from?

No you don't, you can have a USB C port with video output from a discrete GPU with it's own dedicated VRAM or from an integrated GPU that shares memory with the system. My MacBook Pro is the former and my Mac Mini the latter. It's basically just a USB C shaped displayport.

[Ridcully]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

I have enough fast storage in my laptop, externals are for backups and moving files between computers.

Don't think anybody makes a laptop with 4 NVMe slots. Not saying I need it, but if somebody does there are quad m.2 TB3 enclosures.

IMO you'd be better off backing up on HDDs, you can get triple or quadruple redudancy even at 7200rpm at T5's cost per GB, and HDDs are ofc more reliable too. I check SMART output regularly and never had a single failure w/o enough warning that I couldn't get nearly all the data safely off the disk. The downside is you'll be rolling in big clunky drives, especially if you just use internal drives and stick them into a plug-like enclosure like me

Re: quad M.2 via TB3, that's really only best buy if you specifically need to access like 16TB+ of data at mid-NVMe speeds. The problem is with speed - the TB3 port is limited to only PCIe 3x4, and we've already got 4x4 drives and PCIe gen 5 is coming out next year. RAID won't pay off

A better buy would be an internal card, like this, that's where you can make speed gains, since you're not limited by external ports, which all (TB & USB) have effectively slow controllers.

TB3/4's and USB4's 40 Gbps (with overhead) looks impressive on the face of it, but even mid-range NVMe drives will be getting bottlenecked hard at that speed in 2-3 years time.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by darryl

I think USB C is great. Not perfect, but much better than the old standards.

As for the OP? His posts can be annoying at times but he is also quick to provide help to others who need it, and there is often value in his posts. Overall, I think his participation is a positive for Mobileread. I endorse cfrizz's very sensible comment above. I use the ignore list very sparingly indeed but find my Mobileread experience much better after ignoring a handful of posters. The OP is not one of them.

Agreed!