Created on 2019-06-07 01:12
Published on 2019-06-07 01:22
I bought my Toshiba C55 laptop (Intel Core i5 processor, 8 GB RAM and 1 TB drive) a little over three years ago for $470. I upgraded the memory from 8 to 16 GB shortly after I bought it. I only used about half the drive space, mostly for videos and pictures; however, those were also being stored in Google Photos (free unlimited storage at a slightly lesser quality than original). Inevitably, with all the patches to Microsoft Windows 10 and Office 365, as well as all the ancillary apps installed over the years (anti-malware, multiple cloud storage, backup, password vault, etc.), the CPU and memory were just not cutting it; it takes up to 10 minutes to boot, and this was after fine-tuning the startup. I don’t use my laptop much these days—maybe 5 hours a month maximum—as I’m able to do some personal stuff (check email and such) on my work machine or wife’s Macbook. But, when I need my laptop, it’s painful. So, recently I was thinking it was time to buy a new one, but I’ve since decided against it.
I looked at laptop prices on Amazon and saw it would cost between $750 to $1,000 or more for a decent, similarly configured system with a faster processor (Intel Core i7). On eBay, sale prices for used Toshiba C55 laptops are around $220, so that w down my cost to $530-780. Still slightly more than I want to spend, so I started thinking more and researching options.
The wife uses her Macbook rarely (two or three times a week) for work and browsing but mostly uses her phone. I considered moving my data to an external drive and accessing it from the Mac when necessary; however, I’m a Windows guy from waaaay back (Windows 3.0 to show my age), and Microsoft Office for Mac just isn’t the same. And, I didn’t want to fight her for the laptop as she’d likely always win. Back to the drawing board.
I knew Amazon offered virtual servers for business but wondered what they offered for personal users. I had an AWS account from my past life, so I re-activated that and checked out their offerings. I discovered AWS WorkSpaces and learned about their free tier trials. I liked what I saw and decided to move all of my documents to OneDrive [considering I get 1 TB of storage with my Office 365 subscription], and with my photos already in Google and everything backed up to iDrive, just getting a small AWS WorkSpace to host my apps and allow me to access from anywhere (wife’s Mac, work laptop, library, etc.), I decided to test it out for two months during their “free tier eligible” period to see if it is feasible for long-term use.
The virtual host is Windows Server 2016 configured with an 80 GB C: drive for applications (root volume), and 50 GB D: drive for data (user volume); 2 virtual CPUs and 4 GB RAM. The “drives” are SSD. I can—of course—increase the storage, CPUs and memory at the flip of a switch when necessary. I’m in “AutoStop” mode which means the WorkSpace starts when I sign-in and stops after a certain period of inactivity. I can switch it to “AlwaysOn” and back whenever necessary. There’s no USB flash drive support from the WorkSpaces Client; however, the PCoIP hardware or software client from Teradici solves that if necessary.
Setup of the AWS WorkSpace was pretty straight-forward. Once in the WorkSpaces Console, I simply launched a new WorkSpace, configured storage, CPU and memory, selected a username, downloaded the WorkSpaces Client, typed in the registration code, username and password, and I was up and running in a fresh and clean Windows instance. I installed all my apps and connected it to OneDrive. Took a few hours total.
As for price, AWS WorkSpaces is free for two months as long as you stay in the “AutoStop” mode. If you switch it, it will revert to a paid account. After the two months are up, I’m looking at $9.75/month + $0.26/hour. Considering I should get about $220 for the Toshiba laptop, at 5 hours/month usage, from what I see, my overall cost for the next three years will be roughly $155.70 plus tax.
I’m currently writing this in Microsoft Word from my AWS WorkSpaces machine using the WorkSpaces client from my wife’s Macbook. The experience is seamless, and besides the keyboard differences, I can’t tell I’m using a virtual machine. It's much faster than my laptop ever was, not to mention the incredibly fast Internet access. So far I’m very pleased. I’ll give some updates and feedback in a few months after the trial ends.