Got mine!

[Plantje]

Yesterday I bought me a Surface Pro 2017 LTE i5/8/256. Combined with a Surface Pro Type Cover with fingerprint reader for € 1100,- it's a real bargain!

I'm very happy with it! Still I have not done a lot with it since I am getting married tomorrow. I will be here more at the forums again I guess!

The next thing I want to do is replace my entire desktop and my current Surface 3 LTE. Replacing the Surface 3 is easy: just sell it. As for my desktop I will need some stuff:

• A Surface Dock
• New keyboard and mouse combi for at home
• Arc touch mouse for on the move
• Mini DP to DVI (2x) for connecting two 24" screens
• USB hub for connecting more periphicals
• NAS or something of the sort to stuff my current HDD's

 

[sharpuser]

Congrats, @Plantje. You seem to be far along the way towards your setup. The dock is of course the most expensive item on the list, but it provides more USB connections. As far as a NAS, you could do what I do instead: I have two external drives; One connected to the docking station, and the other to the router. I back up to both, and have files from my previous PCs, and current MacBooks there, too.

 

[Plantje]

Thanks! I am still really really happy with it!

Sometimes I am still in doubt and thinking of just pushing an i7 in my desktop at home. I built it a while ago with the basic idea of a cheap CPU, 8 GB of RAM with a cheap upgrade to an i7 and 16GB of RAM as soon as things were getting somewhat cheaper. On the other hand that does give me yet another device to maintain... And on the first hand again: it is a device that I can use to run my insider builds on. Aaargh! I don't know! Perhaps I should just put it up for sale and see what people pay for it and based on that determine if I want to keep it or not.
External drives rather than a NAS is a good option as well. Basically I only need that space when working from home. And for the actual backup I have different solutions.

I currently have about 6 USB connections in use. If I attach (let's say) a 3TB external HDD to it, I need one more USB connection. Does the dock work well with USB hubs to get more USB ports? Or will that start to create bottle necks?

As for backup I am moving more and more to my OneDrive folder. Next to that I have an external drive connected to my HTPC where I copy data on a regular basis using SyncToy. I know that by definition a backup should be something that you cannot use in the same way as a regular (external) storage device, but I see great advantages in having my backups browseable. My wife knows: in case of fire: tell the kids to go outside, throw the cats outside of the house and pull the external drive from the HTPC (which runs in our garage). No need to run to the office at the attic.

 

[sharpuser]

Does the dock work well with USB hubs to get more USB ports? Or will that start to create bottle necks?

The dock works just fine with more USB devices.

Glad OneDrive is working for you. Also, be sure to put OneDrive on your smartphone. Handy place to always have some reference files, insurance cards, backup contacts folders, and Camera Roll, too.

 

[Turbo4AWD]

@Plantje , dunno if I mentioned this to you before but, I have transitioned from my Surface 3 to a Surface Pro 6 now (finally got a Pro!) after my Surface 3 screen broke from a fall. Really loving the experience! It hasn't replaced my Alienware laptop as a main PC, but it handles the portability/consumption/mild business work REALLY well. Still keeping the gaming laptop though. Don't think one of these things will ever replace that for me. Anyways, I felt like I should reply since I remember you from the Surface 3 forum! Cheers!

 

[Plantje]

Thanks for getting back. Really appreciated. I still love the fact that I have an LTE version. Do have some brighter spots on the screen though (there's always something wrong with the screens of my devices ). So I will be contacting support for that.