Author: Tobias Zimmergren
http://www.zimmergren.net | www.tozit.com | @zimmergren
Introduction
A lot of my clients, students and SharePoint friends have been asking me about details on my latest development rig - so here you go, a full disclosure of the machine and it's peripherals that I'm currently using for my primary SP 2010 development.
Notes: I've been running with HP for my laptops the last couple of years - and all I can say is that they're amazingly stable and versatile and my next laptop will probably be HP as well!
Hardware configuration
In this section I'll talk about the hardware configuration of my development rig, along with the peripherals I use on a daily basis to make my SharePoint and .NET world rock!
Laptop details
Learn more about the actual laptop models:
HP Compaq EliteBook 8530w (Mobile Workstation, EliteBook)
Accessories
I use this docking station on a daily basis to enable quick docking of my laptop at home and at the office. Definitely worth the cash!
HP 2008 120W Docking Station
CPU
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU, T9400 @ 2.53GHz
RAM memory
8 GB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Disks
For my internal disks (that is, not external) I'm using two of these:
Corsair 128 GB Performance Series Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
For my external disks, I'm using the following:
+ 500GB eSATA 7200rpm disks connectable to the eSATA port on the laptop, for storage
Software configuration
This is my current software configuration (related to my daily-basis work):
- Windows 7 Ultimate
- VMWare Workstation 7
- Office 2010 (Beta)
Summary
To sum it up really quick - I'm using a normal EliteBook laptop.
I've simply replaced the optical (DVD/CD) drive with a second SSD disk. This makes for a super-fast experience in your computer no matter if you're doing things virtually in VMWare or if you're doing it on the host operating system, as I'm placing my VM's on the secondary drive.
It's definitely worth spending a few extra bucks on those SSD drives, I would do it without a blink of an eye.
Since there isn't any alternative for running a client-based virtualization engine in 64-bit from Microsoft, I'll stick with VMWare Workstation for now - which has done the job very (very!) well!
Sidenote: I'm looking at the HP Envy for an upgrade to a newer model later. Support for +16GB RAM is going to have a huge impact on my decision for my next laptop.