KVM recommendation

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > KVM recommendation

brc64: Mar 21, 2008; I wear my sunglasses at night.

This doesn't seem to perfectly fit in any of the existing megathreads, so I figured I'd just start an individual topic here. Here's the situation:

My girlfriend has a personal desktop computer with two monitors. She also works from home and has a work laptop (with dock) and two monitors. Currently, this is a grand total of 4 monitors, two keyboards, two mice, and one headset that constantly gets shifted from system to system. Ideally, she would like to consolidate this setup and free up a significant amount of desk space. It looks like there's not a huge market for hardware KVMs anymore, and even less of one for KVMs that support dual monitors. However, since she uses a VPN client on the work laptop, which effectively removes it from the local network when working, I don't think that software-based solutions (including simple RDP) would work here.

I'm looking for recommendations for either a solid hardware KVM that would meet this requirement (the few that I've found on my own searching are $200+ and have very mediocre reviews) or if somebody is aware of a software solution that would not be thwarted by a VPN client, I'm down for that as well. Any suggestions? Surely this isn't that unusual of a situation?

# ? Jul 6, 2015 17:06

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# ? Apr 26, 2024 20:54

skipdogg: Nov 29, 2004; Resident SRT-4 Expert

The dual monitor requirement is going to make this expensive. I'd look at something like a USB switch and using different inputs on the monitors of price is a concern.

I've dealt with a lot of lovely KVM's over the years, for enterprise the only one I recommend is Avocent. They have a desktop model that would do what you want, but it's north of 500 dollars.

Some of my developers have used IOGear KVM's with decent luck. This will do what you want, but MSRP is 470 bucks. The cheap ones are just that, loving cheap and a waste of time.

http://www.iogear.com/product/GCS1642/

Software solutions won't work unless her work allows a split tunnel VPN, which is extremely unlikely.

I would suggest getting that IOGear from somewhere with a good return policy and try it out.

# ? Jul 6, 2015 17:25

brc64: Mar 21, 2008; I wear my sunglasses at night.

skipdogg posted:

The dual monitor requirement is going to make this expensive. I'd look at something like a USB switch and using different inputs on the monitors of price is a concern.

I've dealt with a lot of lovely KVM's over the years, for enterprise the only one I recommend is Avocent. They have a desktop model that would do what you want, but it's north of 500 dollars.

Some of my developers have used IOGear KVM's with decent luck. This will do what you want, but MSRP is 470 bucks. The cheap ones are just that, loving cheap and a waste of time.

http://www.iogear.com/product/GCS1642/

Software solutions won't work unless her work allows a split tunnel VPN, which is extremely unlikely.

I would suggest getting that IOGear from somewhere with a good return policy and try it out.

This is pretty much what I've been seeing as well. At least Amazon has the IOGear for just over $300, so that's better than MSRP anyway. And it seems to have better reviews than most that I've looked at, which is a plus.

The different input option is intriguing. I take for granted the fact that most modern monitors offer multiple inputs. I will investigate this further, thanks!

# ? Jul 6, 2015 17:54

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

I don't think being connected to the VPN prevents it from also being accessible on your local network. When I was working from home the other night my mini-displayport cable was not working correctly so in order to use the monitor, keyboard, and mouse at my desk I just used RDP from my personal desktop. My laptop was connected to the corporate VPN at the time.

That being said, the RDP experience was not ideal for the work I had to do, even over gigabit ethernet.

# ? Jul 7, 2015 02:18

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

fletcher posted:

I don't think being connected to the VPN prevents it from also being accessible on your local network. When I was working from home the other night my mini-displayport cable was not working correctly so in order to use the monitor, keyboard, and mouse at my desk I just used RDP from my personal desktop. My laptop was connected to the corporate VPN at the time.

That being said, the RDP experience was not ideal for the work I had to do, even over gigabit ethernet.

Like skipdogg said, this depends entirely on the security policies of your corporate VPN. The default and recommended behavior of Cisco IPsec and SSL VPN configurations, for example, is to disallow split tunneling and send all traffic over the VPN to prevent inadvertent leakage of information over an unencrypted connection. This restriction is much less prevalent than it used to be, though, because most people now print to networked printers, and not being able to print things while you're working is a pretty dumb idea.

# ? Jul 7, 2015 03:02

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# ? Apr 26, 2024 20:54

brc64: Mar 21, 2008; I wear my sunglasses at night.

Just as a followup, the suggestion to use different inputs on the monitors worked out quite well. I picked up a basic KVM (or KVMA?) for the keyboard, mouse, and headset but plugged both monitors directly into both the desktop and the dock. It's a little clunky, but overall much better AND not $400!

To switch from one to the other, she just presses a button on each monitor and presses the button on the KVM, and everything seems to be working flawlessly. Thanks for the suggestion!

# ? Jul 9, 2015 17:01

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > KVM recommendation