4 ms·

The whole point of a chromebook is that the storage is in the cloud. I was surprised they offered so much storage.

revelation 12y ago
That's great, but even at 1GBit over Google Fiber that has still less bandwidth than an actual SSD. And of course the most important part of why you use an SSD in the first place is latency, where cloud storage is significantly slower than 1995 spinning platter hard disks. So even if I accept that the storage is in the cloud, it doesn't make sense since the hardware is clearly not there, but the software isn't either. I can't tell VMWare to use Google Drive for storage. It's a propietary data-dump, not an actual drive.
- knodi123 12y ago
  can you use VMWare on a chromebook?
  - darcyparker 12y ago
    Inside a chroot - yes. See https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton
  - gnopgnip 12y ago
    The newer versions of VMware are html based instead of using the thick client. Managing them and accessing the console should work in theory. Also the Citrix receiver and Remote Desktop clients both work well on the newer chromebooks. If you mean running vms I would consider a more powerful machine with more ram and a supported operating system.
    - X-Istence 12y ago
      Too bad that VMWare still hasn't upgraded their VMWare Integration plugin to use the new plugin architecture for Chrome, and that Adobe no longer makes Flash for Linux because right now the only way I can manage my VMWare/vCenter is using the Freshplayerplugin that wraps the Pepper Flash version that comes bundled with Chrome so that I can have the VMWare integration plugin function so that I can upload/download OVF's. --- Suffice to say, the newer versions of VMWare are not HTML based. It's a full on Flash application.
      - tmosleyIII 12y ago
        I have a Dell XPS13 running Ubuntu and I use the vSphere Web Client in Chrome to manage our infrastructure.
        X-Istence 12y ago
        Do you have the VMWare Client Integration plugin? So that you can upload/download OVF files? So that you can browse the datastore and download files?
        tmosleyIII 12y ago
        I apologize I read that last line right after I hit reply. I still cannot transfer files. I use it to manage the existing FreeBSD\Windows\Linux boxes that we currently have and have a bunch of templates that I use already.
- fizzbatter 12y ago
  To be fair, you're not running VMWare on the Pixel either (i don't think?). I'm skeptical that it is even a problem for just about anything you can actually run on the OS. It's a Chromebook afterall, running disk-utilizing programs is not it's design speciality. Sure, you could dump Linux on it - but i'm not sure how many would choose a Pixel over some other highend brands for a Linux machine. I believe the disk is mainly just used as a cache, for web apps (music/etc). Just about everything is stored in the "cloud". (I own a first generation Chromebook, but things may have changed)
  - revelation 12y ago
    Surely a majority of people buying this won't be running the actual Chromebook system on it? What application can you even run on that system that would use 8GiB of RAM and an i5? And last I checked, you couldn't even run Skype on it, so I mean I just come up pretty much empty for the set of people willing to run Chromebook the OS and buy a 1k machine to do it. Since Chromebook is Linux under the hood, they'll presumably have the driver situation down. So this makes for a very nice Linux system.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > Surely a majority of people buying this won't be running the actual Chromebook system on it? "Chromebook" is the hardware device. ChromeOS is the operating system. > What application can you even run on that system that would use 8GiB of RAM and an i5? Is there an upper limit to the RAM or CPU a browser-based application can use?
    - xnxn 12y ago
      > couldn't even run Skype on it Hangouts?
      - nfoz 12y ago
        ... would be fine until I want to talk to my mother, who uses Skype. And then it would feel strangely limiting to not be able to do that on my $999 computer.
Cakez0r 12y ago
It seems like the first models where initially intended to be more of a thin client type deal, but that doesn't seem to be the case with this model (given that it can go up to an i7 with 16gb of RAM). The disk space is disappointing mark on an otherwise excellent ultrabook report card.
choward 12y ago
In a world where cable companies monopolize broadband Internet and cell phone carriers charge for data by the megabyte, I'm pretty sure I don't want to rely solely on the cloud.
- vetinari 12y ago
  In a world, where I achieved today 50-200 kbps connection via ipsec to my company I don't want to rely on network connection either.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> The whole point of a chromebook is that the storage is in the cloud. The whole point of a Chromebook is that the Chrome browser is the app platform. But among the many big pushes of Chrome to enable browser to be a compelling app platform (and one that eventually moved into web standards) is enabling local storage for browser applications so that they don't need to rely on remote storage for everything. So it makes sense that it would have less storage than a laptop with a traditional OS, but more storage than you would expect from a "the storage is in the cloud" model.
- pekk 12y ago
  The typical usage of local storage for webapps is as a cache. That's different in practice from the traditional desktop pattern of installing apps.
darcyparker 12y ago
I upgraded my acer c720p chromebook to 120GB NGFF drive so I'd have more space for my debian chroot. The chromeos is nice. But I really depend on running linux (debian).

That's great, but even at 1GBit over Google Fiber that has still less bandwidth than an actual SSD. And of course the most important part of why you use an SSD in the first place is latency, where cloud storage is significantly slower than 1995 spinning platter hard disks. So even if I accept that the storage is in the cloud, it doesn't make sense since the hardware is clearly not there, but the software isn't either. I can't tell VMWare to use Google Drive for storage. It's a propietary data-dump, not an actual drive.

knodi123 12y ago
can you use VMWare on a chromebook?
- darcyparker 12y ago
  Inside a chroot - yes. See https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton
- gnopgnip 12y ago
  The newer versions of VMware are html based instead of using the thick client. Managing them and accessing the console should work in theory. Also the Citrix receiver and Remote Desktop clients both work well on the newer chromebooks. If you mean running vms I would consider a more powerful machine with more ram and a supported operating system.
  - X-Istence 12y ago
    Too bad that VMWare still hasn't upgraded their VMWare Integration plugin to use the new plugin architecture for Chrome, and that Adobe no longer makes Flash for Linux because right now the only way I can manage my VMWare/vCenter is using the Freshplayerplugin that wraps the Pepper Flash version that comes bundled with Chrome so that I can have the VMWare integration plugin function so that I can upload/download OVF's. --- Suffice to say, the newer versions of VMWare are not HTML based. It's a full on Flash application.
    - tmosleyIII 12y ago
      I have a Dell XPS13 running Ubuntu and I use the vSphere Web Client in Chrome to manage our infrastructure.
      - X-Istence 12y ago
        Do you have the VMWare Client Integration plugin? So that you can upload/download OVF files? So that you can browse the datastore and download files?
        tmosleyIII 12y ago
        I apologize I read that last line right after I hit reply. I still cannot transfer files. I use it to manage the existing FreeBSD\Windows\Linux boxes that we currently have and have a bunch of templates that I use already.
fizzbatter 12y ago
To be fair, you're not running VMWare on the Pixel either (i don't think?). I'm skeptical that it is even a problem for just about anything you can actually run on the OS. It's a Chromebook afterall, running disk-utilizing programs is not it's design speciality. Sure, you could dump Linux on it - but i'm not sure how many would choose a Pixel over some other highend brands for a Linux machine. I believe the disk is mainly just used as a cache, for web apps (music/etc). Just about everything is stored in the "cloud". (I own a first generation Chromebook, but things may have changed)
- revelation 12y ago
  Surely a majority of people buying this won't be running the actual Chromebook system on it? What application can you even run on that system that would use 8GiB of RAM and an i5? And last I checked, you couldn't even run Skype on it, so I mean I just come up pretty much empty for the set of people willing to run Chromebook the OS and buy a 1k machine to do it. Since Chromebook is Linux under the hood, they'll presumably have the driver situation down. So this makes for a very nice Linux system.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Surely a majority of people buying this won't be running the actual Chromebook system on it? "Chromebook" is the hardware device. ChromeOS is the operating system. > What application can you even run on that system that would use 8GiB of RAM and an i5? Is there an upper limit to the RAM or CPU a browser-based application can use?
  - xnxn 12y ago
    > couldn't even run Skype on it Hangouts?
    - nfoz 12y ago
      ... would be fine until I want to talk to my mother, who uses Skype. And then it would feel strangely limiting to not be able to do that on my $999 computer.

Cakez0r 12y ago

It seems like the first models where initially intended to be more of a thin client type deal, but that doesn't seem to be the case with this model (given that it can go up to an i7 with 16gb of RAM). The disk space is disappointing mark on an otherwise excellent ultrabook report card.

choward 12y ago

In a world where cable companies monopolize broadband Internet and cell phone carriers charge for data by the megabyte, I'm pretty sure I don't want to rely solely on the cloud.

vetinari 12y ago
In a world, where I achieved today 50-200 kbps connection via ipsec to my company I don't want to rely on network connection either.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> The whole point of a chromebook is that the storage is in the cloud. The whole point of a Chromebook is that the Chrome browser is the app platform. But among the many big pushes of Chrome to enable browser to be a compelling app platform (and one that eventually moved into web standards) is enabling local storage for browser applications so that they don't need to rely on remote storage for everything. So it makes sense that it would have less storage than a laptop with a traditional OS, but more storage than you would expect from a "the storage is in the cloud" model.

pekk 12y ago
The typical usage of local storage for webapps is as a cache. That's different in practice from the traditional desktop pattern of installing apps.

darcyparker 12y ago

I upgraded my acer c720p chromebook to 120GB NGFF drive so I'd have more space for my debian chroot. The chromeos is nice. But I really depend on running linux (debian).