Just bought 20

[Torqaholic]

That's some world class monitoring you got there. Never used more than 4 or 5 at once myself. You do know a monitor can host more than one application at a time?

[Datawiz]

Originally Posted by dvarapala

I'm curious: why many smaller monitors instead of fewer larger ones?

PIXELS

Let's assume you had two 60" 4k monitors, your screen resolution would have a screen resolution of 9680 x 2160.

In contrast, my array of 18 monitors will give me a working desktop size of 23,040 x 6480.

Just because the huge monitors are bigger, they have the same resolution as each of my 32" monitors. That's a HUGE difference in total desktop size.

[DAB]

how do even keep track of what is on each screen?

[Datawiz]

Originally Posted by DAB

how do even keep track of what is on each screen?

Everything is in the same place day after day. I have 3-4 email clients alone, and they are all in the same place. Get a family chat alert, simply turn your head and read it. No need to hunt and peck for everything.

[dvarapala]

Originally Posted by datawiz

PIXELS

Let's assume you had two 60" 4k monitors, your screen resolution would have a screen resolution of 9680 x 2160.

In contrast, my array of 18 monitors will give me a working desktop size of 23,040 x 6480.

Just because the huge monitors are bigger, they have the same resolution as each of my 32" monitors. That's a HUGE difference in total desktop size.

My assumption was that the larger monitors would be at least 8K (7680 × 4320). For example, a mere 3x3 array of 8K monitors would give you even MOAR pixels (23040 x 12960) than your 18 4K monitors - and probably consume less power and need fewer graphics cards.

Were 8K monitors considered? If so, why did you decide against them?

[the new me]

How many computers are connected to those monitors?

[Datawiz]

Originally Posted by the new me

How many computers are connected to those monitors?

1

Monitor #7 illustrates why I'm buying 20 (2 spares). You can no longer buy the 1920x1200 monitors and when that bottom left died, I had to put a 1920x1080.

[Datawiz]

Originally Posted by dvarapala

My assumption was that the larger monitors would be at least 8K (7680 × 4320). For example, a mere 3 8K monitors would give you even MOAR pixels (23040 x 12960) than your 18 4K monitors - and probably consume less power and need fewer graphics cards.

Were 8K monitors considered? If so, why did you decide against them?

WITH ONE HUGE PROBLEM. Video card availability and cost. The 3 I'm about to buy hold 6 monitors each, and cost just shy of $2,000 each. And the ones I'm buying are world-class engineering type workstation video card workhorses.

I also personally like this solution, because even though it's one desktop, each monitor can work as it's own, meaning when I double click on an app, it maximizes only on that screen. I definitely like that level of compartmentalization. One thing I'm very much looking forward to is the slimline bezel. On the current setup, the gap between 2 monitors due to the old wider bezels is 2+ inches. The new setup will look very much like a monitor wall that you'd see in an airport.

[the new me]

I understand buying a couple of spare monitors. I buy lots of spares. It's great when you can grab a replacement off the shelf for whatever without having to order it. I keep spare laptops. Usually I buy a spec I like new (and they're usually expensive), then when used ones become available for cheap I buy a few spares to keep things going for a bit longer. Just swap the SSD and RAM and I'm up and running again in a few minutes.

Since you only have one computer running all those monitors, I feel obliged to ask what kind of computer you're running? Is it off the shelf? Did you build it? What specs? What OS?

[dvarapala]

Originally Posted by datawiz

WITH ONE HUGE PROBLEM. Video card availability and cost.

A Baller like you should be able to find 3 scalped RTX3080s on eBay for less than the cost of one bottle of Scotch.

[DAB]

Originally Posted by datawiz

1

Monitor #7 illustrates why I'm buying 20 (2 spares). You can no longer buy the 1920x1280 monitors and when that bottom left died, I had to put a 1920x1080.

an OCD type would freak at your numbering order.

[Datawiz]

Originally Posted by the new me

Since you only have one computer running all those monitors, I feel obliged to ask what kind of computer you're running? Is it off the shelf? Did you build it? What specs? What OS?

This thing is a monster (yes, I built it. Been building computers since 1986). It has 9 total internal drives with over 100 TB of internal storage. It has 3 nvidia GTX 1070 video cards with 4 ports each. The remaining 6 monitors run off of J5 Create USB to HDMI adapters. My new cards have 6 ports each, so I'll need no adapters, just the cards.

[Datawiz]

Originally Posted by dvarapala

A Baller like you should be able to find 3 scalped RTX3080s on eBay for less than the cost of one bottle of Scotch.

Those cards only have 4 ports each. I need a total of 18 ports, and 4 cards "does" fit, but it prevents me from using a lot of cables that are necessary to the tower's overall functionality, like having working USB ports and lights (and 4 would only be 16 monitors). I MUST have 3 cards with 6 ports each.

[Thunder22]

I like cake.

(providing site content)

[Datawiz]

Originally Posted by Thunder22

I like cake.

(providing site content)

[Datawiz]

Originally Posted by dvarapala

My assumption was that the larger monitors would be at least 8K (7680 × 4320). For example, a mere 3 8K monitors would give you even MOAR pixels (23040 x 12960) than your 18 4K monitors - and probably consume less power and need fewer graphics cards.

Were 8K monitors considered? If so, why did you decide against them?

BTW, you "mathed" wrong. Using only 3 monitors will not expand the y-axis pixels from 4320 to 12960. My setup is additive because 3 rows of 6. Yours is only additive on the x-axis.

[NotSlo]

J5 Create

[dvarapala]

Originally Posted by datawiz

This thing is a monster (yes, I built it.

Single point of failure - I'm surprised you don't have a cluster of machines each with RAID arrays.

[dvarapala]

Originally Posted by datawiz

BTW, you "mathed" wrong. Using only 3 monitors will not expand the y-axis pixels from 4320 to 12960.

You are correct - you would need 9 8K monitors to achieve the pixel area I quoted.

But the ability to double-click and expand to only a single monitor is a big plus.

[Datawiz]

Originally Posted by dvarapala

Single point of failure - I'm surprised you don't have a cluster of machines each with RAID arrays.

More machines means more heat in the office. I went from what you suggested, to what I have many years ago and it's worked out great. All of those retired machines now live on my moster as fully working VM's. I have working copies of my last 3 laptops in VMWare.

I routinely swap out the storage drives on a regular basis. Every time, I get bigger and bigger drives, and the fully functioning drives to be replaced go on a shelf. Capacity keeps getting larger and larger, and I don't really store much on the OS drive. I only need my programs on it, and it's imaged nightly via Acronis True Image.

I also use a shit ton of VM's, in particular the one I do all of my programming with. It's portable and frequently moves back and forth between the tower and the mobile workstation. If the computer fails for any reason, I'm perfectly capable of working from the laptop.

This is just a backup directory from 1 of the 9 drives. Clearly one drive is the OS drive, but I have a VMWare backups folder on the other 8 drives. I routinely back up my primary vm machines. In this screenshot, each copy of the highlighted backup is 500GB.

And yes, that 500 GB easily fits on my mobile workstation, because it has 3 hard drives all by itself.