Throbbing Angel
uncivilly servile
As per this - all suggestions are welcome. the cheaper the better as far as I'm concerned
RESOLVED: I need to buy a new 'high-spec' laptop for a course I'm doing
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Throbbing Angel
uncivilly servile
paging equationgirl because you may have an idea about this
equationgirl
Respect my existence or expect my resistance
Hey Throbbing Angel, I don't really get involved in specifying or choosing hardware in cybersecurity however existentialist may have some ideas
Throbbing Angel
uncivilly servile
cheers for that
equationgirl
Respect my existence or expect my resistance
Also UnderOpenSky may also have some ideas too
souljacker
innit
Your macbook should be able to do all this surely?
Throbbing Angel
uncivilly servile
Most of it yes - however - the course is in cybersecurity and you work in a 'safe' environment in a virtual machine - M1 and M2 Macs won't run the virtualisation software
: whereas older Macs on intel chips will 
souljacker
innit
I've never had much of an issue with VMs on Mac but I suppose if the course asks for it...Most of it yes - however - the course is in cybersecurity and you work in a 'safe' environment in a virtual machine - M1 and M2 Macs won't run the virtualisation software
Have a look on Mesh. They've got plenty of laptops that will do what you want. What's your budget?
Throbbing Angel
uncivilly servile
Dunno [budget] as I wasn't aware it might be an issue until 10 minutes before I posted, FFS.
I might end up selling the MacBook to fund this, FFS.
Cheers - had forgotten about Mesh, which has also reminded me about Scan, too.
I usually buy scan as they have reasonably priced high end machines. My Laptop has 32 GB RAM but also has a 3080 Laptop GPU. It cost £2K. Which is what I was saying earlier that higher spec laptops also come with other higher spec components. Which is annoying if you just want the RAM and not the GPU.
WhyLikeThis
Something, something, something
That’s not a particularly high spec laptop you need tbf. What type of cyber security course is it? Do you know what you’re going to need to run in these VMs. Knowing this will help understand the grunt needed.
WhyLikeThis
Something, something, something
FYI you will not need a fancy GPU for cyber security stuff unless you’re cracking passwords, but laptops are totally inappropriate for this task as they get too hot. They’re built for bursty use, not constant battering.
A desktop is almost always the better option for most situations, except for convenience.
WhyLikeThis
Something, something, something
This 5th Gen Stinkpad of which you speak? Is it an i3, i5 or an i7? How many cores does it have?
Throbbing Angel
uncivilly servile
i5
From memory it's an L460
Dunno about cores without checking
Prepping it for this course has shown it to be less than reliable, sadly, so I suspect it needs fixing or replacing anyway
MickiQ
In My Defence I was left Unsupervised
My current client has provided me with a Dell Precision 5560 to work on. It is 11th Gen 8 core i7 with 32Gb of memory and a 500Gb disk drive. It has all the specs you want I have Virtualbox on it and it copes fine.It doesn't have any USB-A ports only USB-C's but adaptors are cheap I have a 4 port one that cost me about a fiver.
It could certainly do everything you wanted but it is relatively expensive, googling them you're looking at a couple of grand for that spec.
It could certainly do everything you wanted but it is relatively expensive, googling them you're looking at a couple of grand for that spec.
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
A bit plastic-y, but all the specs are there. Older generation Zen, but 8 Zen2 cores are nothing to sneeze at even now and they're more power efficient than the new Intel stuff so more likely to run longer at their burst speeds.
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existentialist
Things Done
I'm flattered, though I think there are many more competent types on here than me!
TBH, looking at that spec, there's nothing outlandish in there - it's a pretty standard machine generally, no fancy graphics or excessive memory requirements (well, not to me - I'd regard 16GB as a reasonable minimum for every machine, though when I'm speccing my own, I aim for 32). TBH, if going for 32GB doesn't break the bank, and given that you're going to be running VMs, I might be inclined to get that baked in from the start, rather than finding out later that you need to upgrade.
Given the work you're going to do on it, the only real dealbreaker is likely to be that virtualisation stuff, and I'm pretty sure that you could select a particular model, and Google it with the name of your virtualisation software, and get some pretty solid info on whether it's going to work. Just make sure the processor specs are the same in whatever hits you get on Google - don't assume that just because it's come up in the search, it's the right one.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
A bit plastic-y, but all the specs are there. Older generation Zen, but 8 Zen2 cores are nothing to sneeze at even now and they're more power efficient than the new Intel stuff so more likely to run longer at their burst speeds.
Computers, Monitors & Technology Solutions | Dell UK
Dell provides technology solutions, services & support. Buy Laptops, Touch Screen PCs, Desktops, Servers, Storage, Monitors, Gaming & Accessorieswww.dell.com
Yes. I'd also much rather have 8 slighter slower cores then 6 faster ones for this use case.
kalidarkone
Bringing YOU round.....
I just read the title as " I need a high spec lapdance" 
WhyLikeThis
Something, something, something
This may be very important depending on the VMs you’ll need to run. Cyber security is an extremely wide topic. As such, there could be an array if different VMs from what you may be required to run. Do you have a syllabus that lists what VMs are required?
If you’re doing some malware analysis you won’t need much, if it’s Blue Team SIEM stuff (like Security Onion) you’ll need a fair bit of grunt. What VMs are needed will decide how much cash to spunk.
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WhyLikeThis
Something, something, something
According to this:https://productz.com/en/lenovo-thinkpad-l460/p/rBl06
…it may be a 6th gen dual core jobbie. Not ideal but depending on what you need to run and for how long, it may just get you over the line*
If it’s a week course, where you only need to run 1 VM of something lightweight, you could suck it up and make do. Although if you’re doing a university length course, you probs want a decent, modern, machine that has the power but doesn’t weigh as much as a small tank.
*assuming you either have enough RAM or and easily upgrade that, same for disk space.
8ball
Now containing implausible plot armour
WhyLikeThis
Something, something, something
Another option to consider is wiping the Stinkpad and slapping on a lightweight Linux distro, like LUbuntu: Lubuntu – The official Lubuntu home
This will ensure minimal resources are used by the base machine, to free up more the VM(s).
I’ll try to shut up now, I just like getting life out of old boxes and all things infosec.
This will ensure minimal resources are used by the base machine, to free up more the VM(s).
I’ll try to shut up now, I just like getting life out of old boxes and all things infosec.
A couple of grand? The laptop I bought last month has a bigger Hardrive newer processor and was 600 quid admittedly I need to check the virtualisation functionality. Used to run various VMs on my old laptop under VMware workstation but they weren’t doing anything intensive. Just network simulation type stuff that ha 16 gigs RAM, kabylake I7, separate disk for the VMs. but it cost about a grand from PC Specialist in 2014.
Throbbing Angel
uncivilly servile
Cheers everyone, will review in the morning
Throbbing Angel
uncivilly servile
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