I have acquired a Lenovo P15 gen 1 beast with a 4K LCD. This beast has dual M.2 slots and a 4K UHD panel. The T1000 graphics are mediocre but there is some use for the discrete graphics. Might look at upgrades for the machine.

Dual M.2 slots will be handy as I can use one slot for the boot and the second one can handle more games etc.

The Core i7-10850H (6 cores, 12 threads) is strong enough for Excel not to bog down with modelling etc. CPU can run at 5.1 GHz with Turbo Boost. CPU is Comet Lake, mediocre but it runs good enough. CPU is PCIe 3.0 so its mediocre but it better than some older machines I have.

The IPS LCD is nice for video which is why I picked this one as it supports 100% Adobe RGB. Viewing angle is wide too.

Dual TB3 ports allow for more devices to be attached so I can more easily use docks etc as the power is not USB-C on this machine.

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USB 3.5" enclosures are $19 USD postage paid from China, I own several

so you bought a 6 year old PC. What type of modelling are you doing in Excel. how much was it? can you provide a picture of it?

Mostly I do a lot of nutritional tables to balance nutrition before stuffing it into software

I was thinking of getting 128GB stuffed into it as it should be powerful enough for some demanding work

PAR2 for larger backups can use a staggering amount of RAM, I have seen upwards of 48GB RAM used in 1.2TB backup to make 10% redundancy

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USB 3.5" enclosures are $19 USD postage paid from China, I own several

You should use DAT tapes for backup instead. Everybody knows they can stuff a lot of DATA

I saw a dual LTO-9 tape system that had a TB3/TB4 interface. I have only seen DAT tape with SCSI interfaces. The LTO box was $13 grand. Wonder if LTO-10 version is available now?

I like Thunderbolt as it fast and daisy chain is easy and hubs are not super expensive. My Satechi TB4 box came with 135W but my old Dell 180W PSU is far more practical as the upstream has 90W and the downstream have 15W each. The three USB 10 gigabit ports may be 5W or so.

My USB BD drive has a USB-A cable attached. BD25 discs are cheap, BD50 are almost as cheap now.

TB5 is now starting to appear in the latest laptops but anything I own is backwards compatible. TB3 brought USB-C into the realm of laptops back with 8th gen machines.

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USB 3.5" enclosures are $19 USD postage paid from China, I own several