I've been a bit curious lately about how much other other people actually utilize the expandability of their computers, given the increasing popularity of ITX motherboards and small form factor builds, how more functionality keeps getting integrated, and pictures I've seen of older 486 machines that seem to normally utilize a lot more expandability than I see utilized now days (pic related as an example). If anyone wouldn't mind answering the following:
>how many expansion cards do you have in your desktop?
>how many hard drives do you have?
>how many external 3 1/2" or 5 1/4" bays do you use?
>do you use more RAM than you could fit into 2 DIMM slots?
>have you ever found yourself wanting more expandability than you can have with your current machine?
How much expandability do you personally need in a computer today?
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I'll contribute for others who are also interested.
>how many expansion cards do you have in your desktop?
2, for a GPU and an older sound card that I keep around for the game port.
>how many hard drives do you have?
2, a 320 GB HDD and a 480 GB SSD.
>how many external 3 1/2" or 5 1/4" bays do you use?
I have a DVD burner, a zip drive, and a 3 1/2" floppy drive.
>do you use more RAM than you could fit into 2 slots?
Yes, but I'm using a motherboard that only supports DDR2. I have 8GB of RAM
>have you ever found yourself wanting more expandability than you can have with your current machine?
No.
Anyone?
no expansion cards
only 1 ssd since i moved all my hard drives to the server
no bays
2 ram slots, don't need more
i don't want more expandability
wtf i love miniitx now
>>how many expansion cards do you have in your desktop?
Graphics and a network card because my mobo ethernet died.
>>how many hard drives do you have?
Fucking. Too many. 2 HDDs, 2 SSDs (500gb main, 250gb game drive) and then 4 in my NAS.
>>how many external 3 1/2" or 5 1/4" bays do you use?
1 for dvd ripping. I need to just get through all the rips then replace the thing with a fan controller.
>>do you use more RAM than you could fit into 2 DIMM slots?
I mean I'm using all 4 slots. Could I buy denser memory? Sure. But 4 slots is fine.
>>have you ever found yourself wanting more expandability than you can have with your current machine?
I wouldn't mind a capture card. Streaming console to twitch would be a lot more fun through a PC.
Shit sorry I screwed this up. 1 5.25 bay for DVD, one 3.25 for SD card reader.
>how many expansion cards do you have in your desktop?
GPU, USB3 and USB2 = 3 total
New build will feature GPU and Firewire (doesn't exist onboard anymore). Might want to throw a serial port controller in there
>how many hard drives do you have?
2 SSDs via SATA, 8 via SAS in the NAS
New build will have 1 NVMe and 1 SATA
>how many external 3 1/2" or 5 1/4" bays do you use?
2 optical drives and 1 3.5" card reader
>do you use more RAM than you could fit into 2 DIMM slots?
in the old build, yes, 4 x 2GB DDR2 isn't enough
New build gets 16gb DDR4 modules. Since I had money to burn, i just got four modules
>have you ever found yourself wanting more expandability than you can have with your current machine?
Yes, DDR2 didn't get larger modules for a reasonable price, so I held out on 8 until a decent new CPU gen arrived. I'm just generally dissatisfied with the rear I/O of most mainboards as they lack USB ports, other than that I'm pretty happy as there's adapters for most things.
>>how many expansion cards do you have in your desktop?
4, GPU, TV Card, SATA/IDE controller, USB.
>>how many hard drives do you have?
4
>>how many external 3 1/2" or 5 1/4" bays do you use?
SSD in the 3,5" bay, two DVD drives.
>>do you use more RAM than you could fit into 2 DIMM slots?
4x4 GB, at the time it was the cheapest option.
>>have you ever found yourself wanting more expandability than you can have with your current machine?
I can't fit all the expansion cards I want in this computer. None of those are that important though.
None, unless you're a gamer.
My first pc was way, way back in the late 1980's. It was a full tower. It was massive. It came shipped with a box that about the size of a box that a MicroATX case would ship in, and in that box were the manuals and boxes of original floppies. For the next 25 years after that, I've built nothing but full and mid tower ATX's.
Only in these last months have I come to fall in love with the look of small builds. It made me think about what it is I need from a pc. I always start a build expecting that I will eventually add components but I never do. I simply start another build. I wrote down just the components I typically use and needed over the last 25 years. I came to realize that I need nothing more than a MicroATX. That's my current build and I love it. (I will be swapping out the HDD for a large 1TB SSD just as soon as I get my home server up and running)
>how many expansion cards do you have in your desktop?
2. Graphics and Wifi
>how many hard drives do you have?
1. Will probably pick up another eventually
>how many external 3 1/2" or 5 1/4" bays do you use?
Three 5.25" bays occupied by 2 optical drives and a card reader bay, though I'm not entirely sure whether the second optical drive even works or is just not hooked up correctly.
>do you use more RAM than you could fit into 2 DIMM slots?
Yes. My board is triple channel with 6 slots supporting up to 24GB, which I assume means I can only use 4GB sticks. I currently use 18GB right now, so even if it could use 8GB sticks 2 slots still wouldn't be enough.
>have you ever found yourself wanting more expandability than you can have with your current machine?
At this point I just want some USB3 ports. My new case will give me one on the front, but that's it unless I get an expansion card.
>>how many expansion cards do you have in your desktop?
2
>>how many hard drives do you have?
3
>>how many external 3 1/2" or 5 1/4" bays do you use?
1 DVD burner, 1 card reader
>>do you use more RAM than you could fit into 2 DIMM slots?
Yeah, 4
>>have you ever found yourself wanting more expandability than you can have with your current machine?
Yeah, a TV card wont fit any more
>how many expansion cards do you have in your desktop?
Video card (Titan), RAID controller (3 ware something SAS), blackmagic SDI capture, blackmagic HDMI capture
>how many hard drives do you have?
10. 2x 250GB Samsung Evo SSDs, 8x1.2TB SAS in RAID 6.
>do you use more RAM than you could fit into 2 DIMM slots?
Yes. 128GB
>have you ever found yourself wanting more expandability than you can have with your current machine?
Nah. I'm fine.
Producer / director for a major Hollywood studio and part-time videographer for the BBC and National Geographic.
3 expansion at the moment, two GPUs for a pci passthrough system and a tv tuner.
3 hard drives, a boot SSD, a separate HDD for virtual machines and a drive for /home. Along with a home server where most data is stored so I can access it as easily from any of my devices.
3 are filled, but honestly only one is utilized. A DVD drive and two LTO drives.
I don't think I'll be needing more than the 16GB that already fits into two slots anytime soon.
And for sure, I need an SCSI card for the LTO drives, an extra sound card so I don't need to use virtualized AC97, and a multi-io card. But, my consumer grade motherboard doesn't have the PCI-e slots or lanes to spare.
>>how many expansion cards do you have in your desktop?
Desktop: Two, a pair of graphics cards. I'll probably still have two when Vega comes out, I want to keep one so I can do PCI passthrough. Also I used a slot temporarily for a USB 2 card, so I could install Win7 on a Skylake mobo.
Server: Three - graphics card, TV tuner (one of its jobs is to record shows for me when I'm away), and a SATA card.
>>how many hard drives do you have?
Desktop: One SSD, one HDD.
Server: One SSD, thirteen HDDs.
>>how many external 3 1/2" or 5 1/4" bays do you use?
Desktop: Three. Card reader, optical drive (I use it for burning backups to disc), storage drawer.
Server: none
>>do you use more RAM than you could fit into 2 DIMM slots?
Well I run a few VMs on my desktop, and 16GB was feeling cramped, so now I have 32GB in four DIMMs. I wouldn't want to have been stuck with only two DIMM slots.
On my server I have all six slots filled (it's a 1366 triple-channel board) with 24GB, since ZFS likes RAM and I need to be able to fit the occasional game server or such on it.
>>have you ever found yourself wanting more expandability than you can have with your current machine?
I used to have an ITX machine, and I demoted it to running pfSense and doing my router jobs. It wasn't good enough for anything else, since both my desktop and server use way more expansion capability than it has. (And even its single PCI-E slot gets used, it has a dual-port NIC in it)
So I have enough expandability with my current machines, but that's definitely because I picked full-size ATX boards for them. I'd have to give up things I want if I were to try and use smaller-than-ATX form factors.
>>how many expansion cards do you have in your desktop?
GPU and that's it
>>how many hard drives do you have?
One HDD and two SSDs
>>how many external 3 1/2" or 5 1/4" bays do you use?
None
>>do you use more RAM than you could fit into 2 DIMM slots?
Nah
>>have you ever found yourself wanting more expandability than you can have with your current machine?
Not really
>how many expansion cards do you have in your desktop?
GPU, wireless card (soon to be removed)
>how many hard drives do you have?
1 SSD 1 HDD, most of my data is kept on a NAS drive
>how many external 3 1/2" or 5 1/4" bays do you use?
2, one DVD-RW and one toolbox
>do you use more RAM than you could fit into 2 DIMM slots?
Yes, all 4 DIMMs are filled
>have you ever found yourself wanting more expandability than you can have with your current machine?
Not really. I could easily go down to a smaller mobo/case size.
>>how many expansion cards do you have in your desktop?
2 for my GPU. Another 2 for additional network interfaces.
The only slot I have on my motherboad left is a legacy PCI slot, but I have no PCI devices.
>how many hard drives do you have?
1 SSD and 2 HDDs in this computer.
My home server has 1 SSD and 3 HDDs.
>how many external 3 1/2" or 5 1/4" bays do you use?
None. I have a CD drive in one of my other computers, for the rare occurrence that I want to rip a music CD.
>do you use more RAM than you could fit into 2 DIMM slots?
No, not really. I don't have exuberant amounts of RAM, because I'm not doing anything which needs it.
>have you ever found yourself wanting more expandability than you can have with your current machine?
No, what I have now is good. Modern cases and motherboards come with an appropriate amount of expandability.
>how many expansion cards do you have in your desktop?
1. Right now just GPU, but my platform is pretty old so if I wasn't upgrading soon I'd get a USB3 card to actually have live ports on my front IO.
>how many hard drives do you have?
3. SSD boot drive. 2TB "fast" HDD for muh gaymes. 4TB "slow" HDD for media. I'd really like to have a central NAS, but that's pretty far off.
>how many external 3 1/2" or 5 1/4" bays do you use?
Nada. Used to have 2 DVD combo drives, but stopped using those years ago, so out they came.
>do you use more RAM than you could fit into 2 DIMM slots?
Currently, but thats just because it was a cheapo craigslist upgrade. I could pretty easily use 8 or 16 gig sticks instead.
>have you ever found yourself wanting more expandability than you can have with your current machine?
Not really.
Really the only thing stopping me from going SFF on my upcoming build is noise and that I don't currently have a NAS. My PC is really just an HTPC these days and is dead silent in its current padded midtower, the refrigerator 30 feet away is louder.
Ideal build would would be some kind of silenced SFF with a 10g ethernet card to connect to a NAS, and a M.2 nvme boot ssd. Really wouldn't need anything else.
More than 1 PCI/PCIe slot - you don't know when you are going to want some extra controller (USB 3.1/4.0) or sound card.
4 DIMMs for RAM - in the later life of the board/PC, you tend to be in need of RAM upgrade and it sucks when you find that you already have the meager 2 slots full (looking at Mini-ITX).
Space for 2-3x 3,5" HDD.
>how many expansion cards do you have in your desktop?
five.
>how many hard drives do you have?
eleven.
>how many external 3 1/2" or 5 1/4" bays do you use?
six.
>do you use more RAM than you could fit into 2 DIMM slots?
fucking hell m8, opening firefox uses more RAM than you can fit in 2 DIMM slots.
>have you ever found yourself wanting more expandability than you can have with your current machine?
yeah. there's only one real serial port, i can't trust chink shit rs232 dongles when there's the potential to brick an ECU or a radio.
These days I find I only really need a single expansion slot for a GPU. Literally everything else can be handled by the motherboard or USB these days.
Two SSDs, probably about 8 HDDs of varying sizes in a couple of NAS units.
2x8gb ram suits me fine for the moment.
I'd like more USB ports but this can mostly be solved with USB hubs.