Hi from West Yorkshire

[richard6798]

Hi. I don't know much about PCs. I've joined to get advice about how I might be able to reduce the physical footprint of the PC's I do have. I have three laptops, a Dell M6400 (17" screen) used as a workstation & two ACER 5315's (15" screen) , one used as a business laptop the other non business. I am mulling using a mini PC with regular screen. I'll post another thread about this later. Rich

 

[ubuysa]

Hello and welcome. [emoji3]

We'd love to hear about your current PCs and laptops but you should know that these fora belong to PC Specialist (PCS) and we can thus only offer detailed hardware advice on PCS builds.

That said, we'll always help out as much as we can. [emoji3]

Sent using Tapatalk

 

[Oussebon]

Welcome to the forums

As above, the scope of advice might be limited, but I'm sure people can suggest tips for how to arrange a workspace.

Or, getting a single PC with multiple operating systems installed and just booting the OS you want to use at that time.

Dual monitors will be worth looking at for productivity.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Hiya, welcome

 

[richard6798]

Hi. I'm just saying that the "footprint" i.e. the space taken up by my three laptops on my desk is pretty large, I mean they take up quite a bit of the desk space. I'm simply looking for a way to reduce that footprint. At the moment I'm looking at a mini PC + monitor. That should give me more desk space. As for size considerations, I'm not looking for any advice on that. Just PC specs. I'm looking at INTEL NUC MINI PCs .Rich

 

[Oussebon]

The cheapest way to reduce footprint would be to just buy a shelving unit. Not being sarcastic here, I mean it, I recently bought a pair of:

AmazonBasics 3-Shelf Shelving Unit, up to 115 kg per shelf, Chrome: Amazon.co.uk: Kitchen & Home

AmazonBasics 3-Shelf Shelving Unit, up to 115 kg per shelf, Chrome: Amazon.co.uk: Kitchen & Home

www.amazon.co.uk

Which means one 60cm x 140cm Ikea Bekant desk now houses: a full size ATX PC, a laptop docking station + laptop, a tablet (Galaxy Book 10.6"), a kindle, dual 24" monitors connected to both the PC and the docking station, with a separate video input for the tablet, as well as KB+M (and a switch to flip the KB+M between desktop and laptop docking station), books, a 6-drawer storage unit on the desk, plus other accessories. And room for a person to work.

Because we just stacked the IT stuff high, significantly reducing the footprint.

Downstairs we have one with 2 NAS devices, a mini PC, a laptop, a steam link device, and various other accoutrements.

If you want a mini PC, the only way this would reduce footprint is to have to perform the work of all 3 laptops. So what tasks does it need to perform? What software do you run? And what sort of budget are you looking at?

 

[richard6798]

Yes, if I am to reduce my PC "footprint" on my desk to the max , I'll need to place all the data onto the mini PC HDD. Hopefully I can transfer at least one OS to my mini PC from one of the laptops (to save money).

 

[Oussebon]

You want advice on PC specs.

To give you advice on PC specs, we need to know:

So what tasks does it need to perform? What software do you run? And what sort of budget are you looking at?

Also - do you need 2 or 3 separate 'systems'? For instance in my PC I had 2 SSDs, each with a different installation of Windows. One installation was encrypted and used for sensitive personal data for my work. The other was my home installation and has games and stuff. So it was one machine, but like having 2 PCs (obviously only using one at a time).

Do you need separate installations?

Why do you have 3 laptops now? Is that just unfortunate coincidence or do they each fulfil a separate role that 1 machine alone couldn't fulfil?

Do you need to use more than 1 system at a time?

Yes, if I am to reduce my PC "footprint" on my desk to the max , I'll need to place all the data onto the mini PC HDD.

There are actually other options. e.g. putting the data onto a network storage device that doesn't even need to be on the desk.

You need to give us more info about what you actually want to end up with if you want detailed advice.

Or else it's just people telling you "Buy THIS! It might be what you need and you should clearly buy it!" And you might as well stick a pin in a catalogue.

 

[richard6798]

Why I have 3 laptops. I originally had 2 + a tower system. The laptops: One was used for business, the other for personal stuff (mostly hobbies & shopping). The tower was used as a workstation. Because the tower was taking up too much space I got the Dell M6400 laptop to take it's place. It sits off the desk, I only place it on the desk when I need to use it. I probably should place 2 OS on the mini PC, divided between business & personal. By the way I intend to create another thread elsewhere to discuss PC requirements. Probably in the mini PC section.

Mini PC's

Technical support for mini PC's/Small Form Factor PC's.

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

 

[Oussebon]

It would be fine to continue this topic as it includes important info (e.g. your post above). If you make a new topic make sure to include all the same info