5 ms·

I believe it. Last summer I switched to a Dell M5510 (dev edition) from a MacBook Pro that was under a year old. Until then I had been a die-hard Mac user bas

I believe it. Last summer I switched to a Dell M5510 (dev edition) from a MacBook Pro that was under a year old. Until then I had been a die-hard Mac user basically my entire life, but the MBP and new versions of the OS just had too many bugs: - Time machine backups being corrupted on a monthly basis - Audio occasionally not working after wake from sleep - Laptop failing to wake from sleep altogether - One or two kernel panics In contrast, the Dell has had absolutely no problems running Linux for the past 9 months other than the inability to hot-plug the ethernet dongle. It's truly been more stable than the Mac. And the physical build quality is 90% of the way there, too. Aluminum case, similar keyboard, rubberized CF palm rest, etc. No complaints.

tedmiston 10y ago
What made you realize that your Time Machine backups were getting corrupted? I've never seen that before and am curious to know if there's some kind of user notification.
- toyg 10y ago
  The classic notification that "Time Machine must take a new backup". Usually that translates roughly to "Time Machine lost the plot and will now start from scratch, say bye to your old versions".
  - tedmiston 10y ago
    I haven't seen this one -- just when the backup disk is full and Time Machine says "this backup will erase backups before date x".
    - DigitalJack 10y ago
      I've gotten it 3 or 4 times in the last 6-8 months. It makes a new backup from scratch which takes forever. Very annoying. I use it for the times when I mess something up and want a file system level "undo" that goes back months. I'd be happy if it just used spare space on the drive. Which it does, but only if you are also backing up to an external drive.
  - danieldk 10y ago
    Time Machine lost the plot and will now start from scratch, say bye to your old versions Except that Time Machine just creates one directory per backup and hardlinks unchanged files into the new backup (sometimes in a sparse bundle, but IIRC only on the Airport/Time Capsule). So, it's never 'goodbye old versions', since you can just browse Time Machine backups as a regular directory structure. My wife had the damaged backup problem a couple of years/macOS versions back. But regardless, we could still browse old backups as normal directories.
- stronglikedan 10y ago
  I don't know about Time Machine specifically, but the first rule of backups is to always test your backups, so that may be how they found out.
- neon_electro 10y ago
  Here's an informative link with a screenshot: http://pondini.org/TM/C13.html http://pondini.org/TM/C13.html
hn_throwaway_99 10y ago
Honestly, though, I still don't understand how Dell can have such a crappy website to sell their products. Just compare the laptop image here, http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m5510-workstation/pd http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m5510-workstatio... , with the imagery at http://www.apple.com/macbook/ http://www.apple.com/macbook/ . On the Dell site you get a couple crappy, low res photos, where it's hard to tell how "robust" the laptop chassis is. On the Macbook site you get gorgeous, high res photos that give me a much better understanding of the overall look and feel of the product. I mean, I understand that other companies will not have the same design focus as Apple, but isn't it pretty easy to at least standardize on "use high resolution photos"??
- mi100hael 10y ago
  Looks like the 5510 has been succeeded by the 5520, which has a slightly better product page: http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-15-5520-laptop/pd http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-15-5520-laptop/p...
- runamok 10y ago
  Seriously. Dell's website is a tire fire. I have been on the cusp of buying an XPS-13 several times but the lack of usability and details during the configuration process is a big turn-off. For instance it took me a long time to figure out that the high-res screen is only accessible with a touch screen. Was also hard for me to see if the ssd was m2 and replaceable.

tedmiston 10y ago

What made you realize that your Time Machine backups were getting corrupted? I've never seen that before and am curious to know if there's some kind of user notification.

toyg 10y ago
The classic notification that "Time Machine must take a new backup". Usually that translates roughly to "Time Machine lost the plot and will now start from scratch, say bye to your old versions".
- tedmiston 10y ago
  I haven't seen this one -- just when the backup disk is full and Time Machine says "this backup will erase backups before date x".
  - DigitalJack 10y ago
    I've gotten it 3 or 4 times in the last 6-8 months. It makes a new backup from scratch which takes forever. Very annoying. I use it for the times when I mess something up and want a file system level "undo" that goes back months. I'd be happy if it just used spare space on the drive. Which it does, but only if you are also backing up to an external drive.
- danieldk 10y ago
  Time Machine lost the plot and will now start from scratch, say bye to your old versions Except that Time Machine just creates one directory per backup and hardlinks unchanged files into the new backup (sometimes in a sparse bundle, but IIRC only on the Airport/Time Capsule). So, it's never 'goodbye old versions', since you can just browse Time Machine backups as a regular directory structure. My wife had the damaged backup problem a couple of years/macOS versions back. But regardless, we could still browse old backups as normal directories.
stronglikedan 10y ago
I don't know about Time Machine specifically, but the first rule of backups is to always test your backups, so that may be how they found out.
neon_electro 10y ago
Here's an informative link with a screenshot: http://pondini.org/TM/C13.html http://pondini.org/TM/C13.html

hn_throwaway_99 10y ago

Honestly, though, I still don't understand how Dell can have such a crappy website to sell their products. Just compare the laptop image here, http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m5510-workstation/pd http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m5510-workstatio... , with the imagery at http://www.apple.com/macbook/ http://www.apple.com/macbook/ . On the Dell site you get a couple crappy, low res photos, where it's hard to tell how "robust" the laptop chassis is. On the Macbook site you get gorgeous, high res photos that give me a much better understanding of the overall look and feel of the product. I mean, I understand that other companies will not have the same design focus as Apple, but isn't it pretty easy to at least standardize on "use high resolution photos"??

mi100hael 10y ago
Looks like the 5510 has been succeeded by the 5520, which has a slightly better product page: http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-15-5520-laptop/pd http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-15-5520-laptop/p...
runamok 10y ago
Seriously. Dell's website is a tire fire. I have been on the cusp of buying an XPS-13 several times but the lack of usability and details during the configuration process is a big turn-off. For instance it took me a long time to figure out that the high-res screen is only accessible with a touch screen. Was also hard for me to see if the ssd was m2 and replaceable.