Desktop
I built my own custom desktop to handle high-performance tasks like programming, simulations, and hardware prototyping. Here are the specs:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, Noctua NH-D15
- RAM: G.Skill Trident Z Neo 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3200 CL14-14-14-34
- GPU: Sapphire NITRO+ AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Vapor-X 24GB
- Power Supply: Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 12 1500W (BN647), 80 PLUS Titanium
- Storage: 3x Samsung 980 Pro 2TB NVMe, 1x Samsung 870 EVO SSD
- Optical Drives: 2x Plextor PX-891SAF 24X SATA DVD/RW Drive
Built in one of my favourite cases, a Define 7 XL (it was between this or a Dark Base Pro 900 rev. 2, and the fractal case was easier to get). Loads of space for airflow, PCIE expansions, Optical Drives, storage. Definitely a pleasure to build in with great cable routing spaces. No RGB bloated parts (the X570 Unify is a pretty nicely specced board blacked out with no RGB nonsense), and some other nice parts (5x 120mm Silent Wings Pro 4).
I dual boot Debian 13 on one 980 pro, and windows on another 980 pro, the last 980 is mostly a dump drive for a convenient place to store files.
Acer Aspire
This laptop has been stashed for future use in my homelab as a low power server, likely as a device meant for external facing services via a dedicated VLAN.
- CPU: Intel Core i5-4200U
- RAM: 8GB DDR3
- Storage: 256GB SSD
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 740M
- Operating System: Debian 12 XFCE
ThinkPad P16s
My main online exam taking laptop so that I can do exams (the sandbox programs are dependent on windows), and for heavier mobile tasks, with the following specs:
- CPU: Intel i7-1260P
- RAM: 32GB 3200MHz
- Storage: 1TB SSD
- GPU: Intel Iris Xe Graphics and NVIDIA T550 Laptop GPU
- Operating System: Windows 11
ThinkPad T480
I have a secondhand ThinkPad T480 for lighter mobile tasks I carry around most days, with the following specs:
- CPU: Intel i7-8650U
- RAM: 32GB
- Storage: 1TB SSD
- Operating System: Debian 13
I have spent some time writing configs for i3wm and ricing this laptop. Arch did not work out, I didn't like how it felt, and the constant need to update and wayland crash bugs. I just want something stable and boring, something that I can update once a year or when there is some needed patch. Everything else I could probably compile.
I currently run Debian 13 on this machine, and so far the 2018 quad-core is sufficient and maybe even still overkill for the SUTD CS course work.
I love the fact that I can just hotswap the external battery, the Power Bridge feature is something special. I remember being able to do about 18h of work in tmux with the additional battery.
TrueNAS Server
My TrueNAS server provides robust storage and performance for backups and hosting projects. Here are the specs:
- CPU: Intel Core i5-10400, 12 threads
- RAM: 64 GB
- Disks:
- ada0: 111.79 GiB (boot-pool)
- ada1: 111.79 GiB (boot-pool)
- da0: 9.1 TiB
- da1: 9.1 TiB
- da2: 9.1 TiB
- da3: 10.91 TiB
- da4: 10.91 TiB
- da5: 9.1 TiB
More than sufficient solution for my homelab archiving / content storage needs.
Debian Server
My first server of any kind, initially built around 2020 using whatever was cheap, a 3200g, 4x4TB WD blues, some ram. It ran Windows 10 with the drives in a raid10 structure, permamently offline since its purpose was to be a cold backup server (something like a large external hard drive to backup files)
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G
- RAM: 64 GB DDR4
- Storage: 256 GB SSD
- Storage: 4x 4 TB SSD