TM1 Hardware (Notebook)

[MSidat]

Hi,

Looking at picking up a new Notebook, as mine is now dying a death after 7 years of loyal service!

The obvious choice would have been to go for a Dell but after reading Alans comments in a previous post, dont really wish to run through some red lights!

Any recent experience anecdotes would be appreciated, basically require one for TM1 Developments and to mimic server/client links using a virtual server set up on it.

Thanks in advance

[qml]

All I can say is, in a single-user environment you should go for the highest possible CPU clock, not for the number of cores, and make sure you have enough RAM for the size of models you want to work with (but if it's 32-bit TM1 then it's not worth having more than 4 gibibytes anyway).

TM1 is pretty scalable though, so it should run just fine on any modern notebook, provided the model is not too complex/big.

[Alan Kirk]

Looking at picking up a new Notebook, as mine is now dying a death after 7 years of loyal service!

You got lucky. Rarely will one last more than 3 years these days in my experience. (Although mine are on and/or in standby mode pretty much 24/7 from the day they're turned on and would get used for several hours every day; even the best hinges have their limits, and those seem to be the first to go. (Unless a Dell battery is involved...)

The obvious choice would have been to go for a Dell but after reading Alans comments in a previous post, dont really wish to run through some red lights!

To be fair the computer itself wasn't too bad; the battery obviously was, and the after sales service was woeful. I'd never buy from them again on that basis when there are so many other good brands out there. I'd certainly never buy one of their desktops; they're rugged and in my experience reliable (my one at work has been running for just over 7 years, pretty much non-stop), but the performance and specs seem to be built down to a price. This is less the case with their notebooks, I've noticed.

Any recent experience anecdotes would be appreciated, basically require one for TM1 Developments and to mimic server/client links using a virtual server set up on it.

I agree with qml. I don't think it will be easy to really simulate a multi-user load on a single notebook anyway, but obviously it's great for testing out the calculation side of models and so forth, as well as testing functionality in new TM1 releases to try to spot where the pitfalls may be. For that reason you may as well throw as much grunt at it as you can. Though that having been said, I find the Core i3 in my Compaq to be plenty powerful enough as my general purpose notebook. In truth I just got sick of shelling out so much money for notebooks every few years so I went for a cheaper model, but I haven't regretted the choice performance-wise. I can run reasonably sized TM1 models on it (often find myself swapping to virtual memory, though; 4 Gig of RAM and only 32 bit TM1), though if TM1 was my primary reason for having the notebook rather than just one of many, I'd probably ramp up to one of the higher processors as qml suggests.

[jim wood]

For me it depends on what you want to do wit the laptop. I have a core i5 dell and it's been fine so far. (6 months old) The additional cores compared to core i3 have given me the ability to run a couple of virtual machines on my laptop at the same time with out having an impact on laptop performance.

With TM1 moving in to Linux as well as Unix I have found having the ability to run several virtual machines valuable indeed.

[MSidat]

Thanks for the posts fellas.

Probably will for go for the extra Cores in order to ensure I have at aleast a minimum performance when connecting up some virtual machines for testing.

No comes the hard bit of forcing the credit card out of the wallet and hiting the buy it now button!!

[Kyro]

Just got a laptop for one of our new TM1 Consultants and went for an x64 - i7, 16GB Ram, 3GB Graphics Memory, 1TB Drive (2x 500GB Raid) - Should be able to last in this space for a few years at least.

[MSidat]

Could run a AI system which automatically designs and deploys TM1 solutions with that system Kyro!

Was it a good deal, branded / non branded, or were you just maxing out the companies budget!!

[Kyro]

This is the beast here. Just looking to make our consultants happy

[jim wood]

Kyro,

I've got no idea where you are based and I know nothing about your company but if your buying your consultants that spec of laptop I'm all ears!!!!!!!!

Jim.

[csjean]

Kyro,

I've got no idea where you are based and I know nothing about your company but if your buying your consultants that spec of laptop I'm all ears!!!!!!!!

Jim.

Hear Hear!!!!