So, some pics of the new system building process. Apologies for the abysmal quality of most of the pictures - all bar this first one of the desk were taken with the phone (its incredibly hot, I’m feeling lazy).

I missed a real trick actually with documenting this build: I still have 3 old 3.5″ HDDs from c.2008, along with RAM sticks & a 1st generation Intel SSD from the same period. I really should have done some side-by-side comparisons of the size and looks of the hardware. For eg:

• The Intel SSD was an 80GB drive pre-TRIM. It was about the size of an A5 pad. The 256GB Samsung 950 PRO NVMe M.2 drive is almost the width of a standard 15cm ruler, and measures under 10cm I think. 

• I have 1 1TB 3.5″ Samsung HDD left from the old PC. The new one I bought is a 1TB 2.5″ Hitachi HGST Travelstar, which is adorably small in comparison.

• Similarly, I also have a 2.5″ 500GB Samsung 850 EVO, which is the same form as the Intel drive, has >9x the storage density, and supports TRIM (or similar).

• The one thing that is larger, is the 2x16GB Corsair RAM sticks, partly due to their storage density, but also due to their incredibly tall heatsink as well.

• Lastly, the one thing that really impresses me is that I could get a 550W power supply for this PC. The one I had in ‘08? 1200W. And that was the norm for a high-performance PC back then.