I’m processing 100’s of GB of information (the whole historical bitcoin blockchain). Enough to not fit in RAM, but the computation I’m running is fast enough to not be CPU bound.
At home I have a desktop rig with multiple TB RAM and a fast server CPU. I would normally ssh into that to run tests with the chain mounted on a /dev/shm partition, which was a pain and only was accessible when I was at home. With my new MacBook Air, the upgraded internal drive is large enough to hold the full historical chain, and streams from disk fast enough to finish a run in comparable time. So now I’m mobile and can work from anywhere, with an entry point laptop replacing a dedicated server! That’s a big change for me.
I recognize not everyone’s tasks are bottlenecks the same way though.
At home I have a desktop rig with multiple TB RAM and a fast server CPU. I would normally ssh into that to run tests with the chain mounted on a /dev/shm partition, which was a pain and only was accessible when I was at home. With my new MacBook Air, the upgraded internal drive is large enough to hold the full historical chain, and streams from disk fast enough to finish a run in comparable time. So now I’m mobile and can work from anywhere, with an entry point laptop replacing a dedicated server! That’s a big change for me.
I recognize not everyone’s tasks are bottlenecks the same way though.