Laptops for bioinformatics

[LMM]

Hello,

I am a graduate student who is in the market for a new laptop, and I was wondering if anyone had any input. I am currently running (very slowly) Qiime1 & 2 on a smaller dataset from 454, but would eventually need to be able to process about 5 GB data as well as use R studio and CLC.

I have been a Mac user for several years now, but beyond the longevity of their products (I'm currently using a 2010 MacBook Pro ), do not have much preference for Mac or PC. My budget is ~$800.

Any input would be appreciated!

LM

[neavemj]

Hi LM,

It might be worth trying to get access to a server if you're going to start processing larger data sets. Does your university maintain a bioinformatics server? Then you can just have a reasonable laptop (doesn't need to be anything special) and access the larger computing requirements on the server as required. This also means you can let your IT department worry about updating the system, backups, etc.

Cheers,

Matt.

[LMM]

Hi Matt
Thanks for your input - I'll look into it.
Cheers
Laura