Need a new Computer! (1 Viewer)

[Scott Merryfield]

I just left Micro Center as I wait for my data migration to be completed in the next 24-72 hours.

One thing to consider to make future computer upgrades easier is to get an external hard drive for your data, and just use your internal drive for the operating system and applications. I actually have two external drives -- one for my data, and a second to backup the main data drive's data. In fact, I just upgraded my primary external drive to a 14TB Western Digital, and made my old primary 4TB Seagate the backup (replacing a 3TB drive). I only have about 2TB of data currently, so the 14TB drive is overkill for now, but it was fairly inexpensive, and smaller drives were not that much less costly. Most of that data is digital photographs (I am an amateur photographer) and my digital music library, so I like having the extra space for growth -- plus it's handy for temporary working space sometimes.

With an external drive, you just need to plug it in to your new PC and point your applications at it. The only user data that I have on my internal drive is for DVD Profiler and Quicken. Those are the only two applications where I need to "migrate" data, and it's a simple import from the backups for each -- the same as I do when we travel to South Carolina for many weeks and I need that data on my laptop.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I finally visited the Micro Center today and spec. out and got an estimate for my next computer . I’ll be returning there next week with my old computer to purchase my new computer and to have them do my migration from old to new.

WOW! And, that's in a good way. Many thanks to all that participated in this thread with your knowledge and advice.

 

[Edwin-S]

WOW! And, that's in a good way. Many thanks to all that participated in this thread with your knowledge and advice.

What were the specs and brand that you finally settled on?

 

[Robert Crawford]

What were the specs and brand that you finally settled on?

I decided on Micro Center's PowerSpec brand instead of HP or Dell with the following specs:

• Intel Core i7 12th Gen 12700K 3.6GHz Processor
• 16GB DDR4-3200 RAM
• 1TB Solid State Drive
• Intel UHD Graphics 770
• Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
• 10/100/1000 Network
• 802.11ac Wireless
• Bluetooth 4.1

 

[Robert Crawford]

I also bought a new 27" LG Monitor.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Well, everything with the new PC went well with the migration and such. Some things I had trouble with using Windows 8.1 are now working properly with Windows 11. However, with DVD Profiler, I lost the special categories I added for my digital designations such as iTunes/Vudu 4K Digital and iTunes/Vudu HD Digital.

Anyhow, damn this new PC with Windows 11 is faster than crap.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

I presume the SSD is an NVMe drive, not the older SATA SSD spec. The NVMe drives are at least 3 times faster than SATA.

 

[Edwin-S]

Well, everything with the new PC went well with the migration and such. Some things I had trouble with using Windows 8.1 are now working properly with Windows 11. However, with DVD Profiler, I lost the special categories I added for my digital designations such as iTunes/Vudu 4K Digital and iTunes/Vudu HD Digital.

Anyhow, damn this new PC with Windows 11 is faster than crap.

Yes. That is the problem with Windows upgrades. They can fix problems but cause other things to break. It is a big problem that can occur with industrial plant Human Machine Interface software.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I presume the SSD is an NVMe drive, not the older SATA SSD spec. The NVMe drives are at least 3 times faster than SATA.

That is correct, it’s a 1TB NVME SSD.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I decided on Micro Center's PowerSpec brand instead of HP or Dell with the following specs:

• Intel Core i7 12th Gen 12700K 3.6GHz Processor
• 16GB DDR4-3200 RAM
• 1TB Solid State Drive
• Intel UHD Graphics 770
• Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
• 10/100/1000 Network
• 802.11ac Wireless
• Bluetooth 4.1

Sounds pretty much the same specs as the Dell PC I purchased during Black Friday. You should be happy with the performance boost - - I am.

As for your DVD Profiler issue, that's odd. My special categories and media types came over fine. Did you perform a complete backup within the application on your old PC and then restore to the new PC using that back up file?

 

[Robert Crawford]

@John Dirk Thanks for the Micro Center recommendation. That place has everything. The first two times I shopped there during their Christmas hours at around 9:30 a.m., the store had customers, but not crowded at all. However, yesterday, when I picked up my computers, the store didn't open up until 11:00 on Saturday and I arrived at that time. What a madhouse, full of customers everywhere. Furthermore, people were ahead of me in line at their repair service center. Just about all of them never left their computer, laptop or tablet because they couldn't get their repaired equipment back until at least two weeks later. Luckily, with me purchasing my computer from them, it pushed my computer migration ahead of the line repair-wise as my migration was finished in less than 72 hours.

 

[Robert Crawford]

As for your DVD Profiler issue, that's odd. My special categories and media types came over fine. Did you perform a complete backup within the application on your old PC and then restore to the new PC using that back up file?

That was probably my mistake as I just downloaded my collection.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

That was probably my mistake as I just downloaded my collection.

That's probably the problem. Do you still have your old PC? If so, run a backup on it, and restore that file on the new PC.

 

[Robert Crawford]

That's probably the problem. Do you still have your old PC? If so, run a backup on it, and restore that file on the new PC.

I fixed it by doing a restore database from one of my thumb drives! Thanks for the help.

By the way, I'm amaze as to how fast that restore database process took. It would have taken forever on my old computer.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I fixed it by doing a restore database from one of my thumb drives! Thanks for the help.

By the way, I'm amaze as to how fast that restore database process took. It would have taken forever on my old computer.

Yeah, the SSD is so much faster than the old hard drives. It makes a huge difference.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I had another "wow" moment with this new computer. When I used to back up my DVD Profiler Database with my 12,700+ collection, using archaic USB 2.0 Flash Drives on my old computer, it took at least 20 minutes. Today, I backed up that same DVD Profiler Database using a new USB 3.1 Flash Drive that I bought this morning from BB in my new computer and it only took 4 freaking minutes. Needless to say, I'm purchasing a few more 3.1 Flash Drives.

 

[Mike Frezon]

That all sounds awesome, Robert. Congratulations!

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I had another "wow" moment with this new computer. When I used to back up my DVD Profiler Database with my 12,700+ collection, using archaic USB 2.0 Flash Drives on my old computer, it took at least 20 minutes. Today, I backed up that same DVD Profiler Database using a new USB 3.1 Flash Drive that I bought this morning from BB in my new computer and it only took 4 freaking minutes. Needless to say, I'm purchasing a few more 3.1 Flash Drives.

The great thing about those USB 3.1 flash drives is that they have become pretty inexpensive, even with the higher capacity. Over the holidays, I picked up a 256GB San Disk thumb drive for under $19. I wasn't really looking for another thumb drive, but at that price I jumped on the deal. I then swapped that device with a 64GB drive that I leave plugged into my laptop. I use it for primary data storage and swapping data to/from my desktop.

 

[Robert Crawford]

The great thing about those USB 3.1 flash drives is that they have become pretty inexpensive, even with the higher capacity. Over the holidays, I picked up a 256GB San Disk thumb drive for under $19. I wasn't really looking for another thumb drive, but at that price I jumped on the deal. I then swapped that device with a 64GB drive that I leave plugged into my laptop. I use it for primary data storage and swapping data to/from my desktop.

I got a couple of those coming to me tomorrow.

 

[Robert Crawford]

With Windows 11, I've been playing around between the two browsers Chrome and Edge. I must say, I'm preferring the latter in which I'm having fewer issues like pages not loading properly.