I do one-nighters for a living, which are very hard on all the gear. It is my primary means of making a living, so I perform a lot.

Since I started bringing laptops for my backing tracks, I went to the spare twice.

The first time, the hard drive started to make a mechanical noise so between songs I moved the USB cable to the other computer. I replaced the HD the next day. There was no failure or interruption of our gig.

The second time, the CMOS battery died and the main computer wouldn't boot. I went to the spare and replaced the $5 battery the next day.

I only use ThinkPads because I believe they are the most reliable and rugged consumer PC on the market. I keep the software on my stage computers to a minimum (no Office, no added games, no Internet, no non-essential software at all) and in the 10+ years those were the only two problems - no other glitches at all.

Although thousands of times I didn't need the spare, for the two times I did need the spare they were worth their weight in gold.

Insights and incites by Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

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