Or is this a bad idea?
Reading through !selfhosted, I think I have found a new hobby. I have an old laptop HP ProBook 450 G5 4WU81ES.
16gb ram, solid CPU, shitty integrated gpu, and only 256gb ssd. Barely enough for system and some apps. Battery life maybe 30min unplugged so I take it as an UPS.
So the question again is, can I have permanently plugged external hdd to use as extension for this purpose?
People host stuff on Raspberry Pis, so why not a laptop. One limit you might have is USB speeds, especially if you want to add more drives.
Just so you know it is possible, you can probably disable sleep or other things the laptop does by default when you close the lid, so you can leave it running while the lid is closed.
Did this with my old Dell laptop (that is running Debian server now), and now I access it over ssh while the lid is closed and very rarely open the lid and do stuff on the actual device directly.
I took the screen off my old dell laptop and turned it into a mini blade server with built in UPS. It ran for years. I have no doubt the battery was knackered by the end.
The only reason I replaced it with a Mac Mini 2012 was because it didn’t support usb3 and 4K video saturated the usb bandwidth.
Now my 2012 runs Ubuntu server + docker for those interested :)
Yeah I know laptop itself is not a problem just wondering about stability of USB connected disk. Got some good replies already I will give it a shot
USB to SATA connectors as found in these external hard-drive enclosures are often very bad. You can try to get some better ones and pry the hard-drive out of the case, or if that Laptop still has a DVD drive, you can get an adapter to replace it with a hard-drive that connects directly via SATA.
Can do but be aware that the drive will eventually die, so backup backup backup
256 GB is plenty. I start most of my servers at 30 GB and add space as necessary. Less for Linux.
I guess it shows what a noob am I, planning to use Windows lmao. Never used Linux tbh but I get it in these cases
It will work really well, but the difference between a laptop and a server is operational longevity. Laptops are meant to work for workloads for a few hours, whereas dedicated servers can work 24/7 for years sometimes because of how they are made and tested.
However, if the intensity of workload is light, a laptop can also run for a few months provided temps are well maintained. My tiny RPi ran for a few months till I manually shut it down.
Also, backups and backups.
My tiny RPi ran for a few months till I manually shut it down.
…for a couple months? Huh, I’ve got a rpi 4 and the little bastard has been running “almost nonstop” for 3 years and a half. And he is still kicking.
Just for fun I thought I’d check the uptime of the server I’m logged into at work. 1391 days.
well, yes and no. It’s definitely behind on updates, but it’s running linux and isn’t web facing. Security is outsourced to the firewalls/IDS etc. If someone is trying to hack it, they’re already past the firewalls so we’re fucked by default even if the server is 100% secure.
