SMGJohn Posted October 9, 2022 Share Posted October 9, 2022 Hello, I am looking for some advice regarding more modern laptops I am talking post 2014 here and newer. That contains 2 x 2.5" hard drive slots and a DVD drive bay with either mSATA or M.2 slot as well. I currently own a Dell Alienware M17x R4 seeing how its manufactured in late 2011, and my i7-3940XM is dying of old age, the replacement parts are getting more and more expensive. The reason I want a machine with these specs is because I have 3 x 2.5" SSD's with 8TB each to allow me replace my NAS which is bulky, heavy, I need to be able to pick up my entire machine with all my storage on it in case something happens I can pack it down relatively easily, NAS systems are too massive for this. My budget is whatever fits the bill, the laptop has to be relatively comparable or superior to the M17x R4 Size does not matter too much, it could be as large as a 20 inch gaming laptop such as MSI Titan. And yes I know its not any easy task, I been trying to look myself for many months without luck, perhaps someone owns such a machine or knows of something similar could give advice, currently price of M.2 drives larger than 2TB is criminally high price. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturnotaku Posted October 9, 2022 Share Posted October 9, 2022 Doesn't exist. 2 Desktop: Ryzen 9 5950X | 32 GB RAM | GeForce RTX 4070 | 2 TB SSD | Windows 10 Lenovo Legion Pro 7i: Core i9-13900HX | 32 GB RAM | GeForce RTX 4080 | 2 TB SSD | Windows 11 Lenovo IdeaPad 3 Gaming: Ryzen 7 6800H | 16 GB RAM | GeForce RTX 3050 | 512 GB SSD | Windows 11 Lenovo IdeaPad 5 Pro: Ryzen 5 5600U | 16 GB RAM | Radeon Graphics | 512 GB SSD | Windows 11 Apple iPad Gen 9: A13 Bionic | 3 GB RAM | 64 GB | iPadOS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papusan Posted October 10, 2022 Share Posted October 10, 2022 Not many options above Alienware 17/18 from 2013/14. Or replace the dying parts of your M17xR4. Another option is an used Clevo P870 series. They offer 2xM.2 + 2x2.5 HDD slots and a lots of I/O ports but no DVD drive bay. All we have left today is thin and slimy with 1 or two M.2 slots for storage/OS. All laptop OEMs nowadays try to match Apple's modern slim and thin chassis size and with minimal of I/O ports. Gaming books or laptops for creators is all the same. 3 "The Killer" ASUS ROG Z690 Apex | 13900K | 4090 HOF | 32GB DDR5 | Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 12 - 1500 Watt | Second PSU - Cooler Master V750 SFX Gold 750W (For total of 2250W) | Corsair Obsidian 1000D | Custom Loop | Asus ROG Strix XG27AQ 27" Monitors Papusan @ HWBOT | Team PremaMod @ HWBOT | Papusan @ YouTube Channel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron44126 Posted October 10, 2022 Share Posted October 10, 2022 There are some things like EUROCOM Sky X7W? https://eurocom.com/ec/configure(2,334,0)SkyX7W Two 2.5" SATA bays + two M.2 + Coffee Lake 9th gen CPUs. (Not really cheap, though... You can lower the default GPU and CPU options to shave some off of the price.) Dell Precision 7770 (personal) • Dell Precision 7560 (work) • Full specs in spoiler block below Info posts (Dell) — Dell Precision key posts • Dell driver RSS feeds • Dell Fan Management — override fan behavior Info posts (Windows) — Turbo boost toggle • The problem with Windows 11 • About Windows 10 LTSC Spoiler Dell Precision 7770 (personal) Intel Core i9-12950HX ("Alder Lake"), 8P+8E 8× P cores ("Golden Cove"): 2.3 GHz base, 5.0 GHz turbo, hyperthreading 8× E cores ("Gracemont"): 1.7 GHz base, 3.6 GHz turbo 128GB DDR5-3600 (CAMM) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 16GB (DGFF) Storage: 2TB system drive: Samsung 980 Pro, PCIe4 24TB additional storage: MDRAID, RAID 0 2× 8TB Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, PCIe4 1× 8TB Inland Performance Plus, PCIe4 Kubuntu 23.04 (KDE Plasma 5.27, Linux kernel 6.2) 17.3" 3940×2160 120 Hz display Intel Wi-Fi AX211 (Wi-Fi 6E + Bluetooth) 93Wh battery IR webcam Fingerprint reader Dell Precision 7560 (work) Intel Xeon W-11955M ("Tiger Lake") 8×2.6 GHz base, 5.0 GHz turbo, hyperthreading ("Willow Cove") 64GB DDR4-3200 ECC NVIDIA RTX A2000 4GB Storage: 512GB system drive (Micron 2300) 4TB additional storage (Sabrent Rocket Q4) Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 15.6" 3940×2160 display Intel Wi-Fi AX210 (Wi-Fi 6E + Bluetooth) 95Wh battery IR webcam Fingerprint reader Previous Dell Precision 7530, 7510, M4800, M6700 Dell Latitude E6520 Dell Inspiron 1720, 5150 Dell Latitude CPi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybee83 Posted October 10, 2022 Share Posted October 10, 2022 what brother @Papusan said. basically impossible to find more than one 2.5 inch drive bay nowadays, even more so in combination with an optical drive (bay). ud have to go back a few gens and check the big DTRs of Clevo, MSI, Alienware to maaayyyybe find something along those lines. 4 Mine: Hyperion "Titan God of Heat, Heavenly Light, Power" (2022) AMD Ryzen 9 7950X / Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme / MSI Geforce RTX 4090 Suprim X / G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB DDR5-6600 2x16 GB / Seagate Firecuda 530 4 TB / 2x Samsung 860 Evo 4 TB / Arctic Liquid Freezer II 420 / Seasonic TX-1600 W Titanium / Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 TG / Samsung Odyssey Neo G8 32" UHD 240 Hz / Ducky One 3 Daybreak Fullsize Cherry MX Brown / Corsair M65 Ultra RGB My Lady's: Clevo NH55JNNQ "Alfred" (2022) Sharp LQ156M1JW03 FHD matte 15.6" IGZO 8 bit @248 Hz / Intel 12600 @ 4.4 - 4.8 Ghz / Nvidia 3070 Ti 8 GB GDDR6 / G.Skill 16 GB DDR4-3800 / Samsung 970 Pro 1 TB / Intel AX201 ax+BT / Win 11 Pro Phoenix Lite OS / 230 W PSU powered by Prema Mod! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reciever Posted October 11, 2022 Share Posted October 11, 2022 Best possible mobile server is likely to be the Ranger with the modification I ran on it. I had around 12TB at the time, but with your 3x 8TB drives the Ranger could easily handle that and more tbph 1 1 Telegram / TS3 / Twitter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturnotaku Posted October 11, 2022 Share Posted October 11, 2022 The only other option would be something like the eBlaztr, which is essentially a more portable iMac. The Portable Gaming Desktop » eBlaztr 1 Desktop: Ryzen 9 5950X | 32 GB RAM | GeForce RTX 4070 | 2 TB SSD | Windows 10 Lenovo Legion Pro 7i: Core i9-13900HX | 32 GB RAM | GeForce RTX 4080 | 2 TB SSD | Windows 11 Lenovo IdeaPad 3 Gaming: Ryzen 7 6800H | 16 GB RAM | GeForce RTX 3050 | 512 GB SSD | Windows 11 Lenovo IdeaPad 5 Pro: Ryzen 5 5600U | 16 GB RAM | Radeon Graphics | 512 GB SSD | Windows 11 Apple iPad Gen 9: A13 Bionic | 3 GB RAM | 64 GB | iPadOS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ishayin Posted October 11, 2022 Share Posted October 11, 2022 Any particular reason you need an integrated DVD drive, or might an external USB one suffice? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMGJohn Posted October 19, 2022 Author Share Posted October 19, 2022 On 10/11/2022 at 2:48 AM, Reciever said: Best possible mobile server is likely to be the Ranger with the modification I ran on it. I had around 12TB at the time, but with your 3x 8TB drives the Ranger could easily handle that and more tbph Your Ranger still working fine after all these years or did you replace it? My i7-3940XM is an ES sample so it might be why its dying and the fact the head on the CPU is flacking away, not sure if you experienced any similar issues with the 4xxx series. On 10/11/2022 at 4:06 PM, saturnotaku said: The only other option would be something like the eBlaztr, which is essentially a more portable iMac. The Portable Gaming Desktop » eBlaztr Thanks mate, thats actually a very interesting concept, I remember portable desktop PC's were all the rage in 2010 but no one really did anything with it. Only downside is the lack of a built in battery but I noticed PSU with like 30 minute power outage protection are a thing now although only 400W is max, it could be the thing I am looking for if they release it. On 10/11/2022 at 7:21 PM, Ishayin said: Any particular reason you need an integrated DVD drive, or might an external USB one suffice? DVD drive is simply to replace it with a hard drive bay, external USB have chance to disconnect, bad stuff for a mediaserver Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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