I've looked at the spec for your thinkpad box recommended before, it's a beast for sure, but really down on intel these days.  Intel+nvidia gpu has _NEVER_ worked for me, and just angers me to contemplate wasting money to try again for a non-crap intel gpu, I've never been able to make it work even reasonably well without more detrimental bugs.  Fsck prime and the whole multi-gpu shenanigans.  I'm hoping to avoid that with an AMD cpu/gpu.

I'd really like a decent AMD laptop honestly, but they always seem watered down in comparison to intel's, lacking in some/many ways.  Case in point, looking at these from a random post for a linux supported intel or amd laptop:  https://slimbook.es/en/prox15-en#info

Close, but the AMD version only has 1x m2 disk slot vs. the intel with 2x disk slots.  I like raid, I come from enterprise, I expect disks will fail.  Use of good samsung ssd's has lessened this pain for me, but still redundant disks is an ask.  Also AMD is missing Thunderbolt features that remain an Intel-only thing.  I'm not even entirely sure how compatible straight usb-c is to thunderbolt, but i rather like the use of docks and accessories even on my older xps15.

I'm probably still annoyed from when Lenovo bought IBM's old thinkpad name to reuse, and just see a janky Chinese substitute they try to pawn off at a premium for the name.  Kind of like when people buy a "British" Jaguar or Land Rover vehicle now that is owned by Tata in India these days, and wonder why they break down even more than before.  Most I assume haven't been a part of outsourcing efforts what so ever to witness those debacles.

-mb


On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 7:30 AM Stephen Partington via PLUG-discuss <plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
I would +1 the zfs arrangement on this configuration as well. I am still rather new to zfs filesystems, but my VM host is really happy with zfs. My configuration using zraid and a pair of SSD's for storage tiering has been very nice as a balance.

For a laptop that may meet your needs, I would suggest looking into the Thinkpad T51g. 8 core CPU, Nvidia 2070 or 2080 graphics (nice to have performance graphics without having to deal with Quadro prices), 4 SODIMM slots, 2 thunderbolt, 1USBc connected to the GPU, 2 M.2 slots, a fingerprint sensor, and various workstation extras. Let me know if you have any questions as I happen to have one.

On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 9:55 PM Matthew Crews via PLUG-discuss <plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
On 6/23/21 5:18 PM, Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss wrote:
> Saw this today, talking about encryption under zfs under linux.  Anyone
> using it here that can comment on experience using it yet for personal
> or at scale?
>
> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/a-quick-start-guide-to-openzfs-native-encryption/
> <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/a-quick-start-guide-to-openzfs-native-encryption/>
>
> I use a combination of mdraid+luks+lvm+ext4/jfs, and would really love
> for this to be one thing, ala ZFS or BTRFS.  Yes I could google my arse
> off to look, but looking for some trusted opinion here.

I've used ZFS and BTRFS under Linux, though I haven't tried native ZFS
encryption yet. I have used both ZFS and BTRFS under LUKS encryption too.

Both BTRFS and ZFS work so much nicer than mdraid when it comes to
spanning across multiple disks (though beware that BTRFS still isn't
production safe for RAID5/RAID6).

If you want to use a multi-disk storage array, ZFS and BTRFS are both
superior options to MDRAID.

However ZFS is just straight better and easier to maintain than BTRFS,
especially now that native encryption is a thing (something BTRFS sorely
lacks).



Here is my disk topology for my 4 disk RAID10 setup under BTRFS.

Disk 1 - LUKS - Btrfs --\                   /--Btrfs subvolume
                        |                   |
Disk 2 - LUKS - Btrfs --|                   |--Btrfs subvolume
                        |--- Btrfs volume --|
Disk 3 - LUKS - Btrfs --|                   |--Btrfs subvolume
                        |                   |
Disk 4 - LUKS - Btrfs --/                   \--Btrfs subvolume

To be honest, it is a pain in the arse to mount an encrypted BTRFS
volume this way. You need to unencrypt all four drives first, and then
you need to mount it. But at least once its mounted, the subvolumes are
already set up.

If I need to replace a drive (and I've had to replace drives) it is also
a pain in the arse due to having to deal with both Luks and BTRFS.

Encrypted ZFS would simplify this setup enormously.

When I need to replace my drives, I will be switching from BTRFS to ZFS.


-Matt
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A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

Stephen

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