I have an HP pavillion 15-bc235nd that, quite frankly, I don´t really like that much (way too loud of a fan, cannot adjust the fan curve, keyboard and trackpad are terrible, etc).

I was planning to replace with laptop with something else, but in the meantime, I was thinking of something. Instead of getting this laptop in the landfill or give to someone else (no one needs an emergency laptop right now), I could potentially use this has a server machine to be used as an off site backup location.

Right now I am missing the off site backup part out of the 3-2-1 backup strategy. Since this laptop has more than enough horsepower to do the job, it could be a solution. But personally, I am not sure how reliable a laptop turned into a server can be. This laptop would be around 3000km away from me, so I have to be really sure it works at a distance without much problem.

For those who turned a laptop into a server: what is your mileage? Are there any specific considerations about this setup that a regular desktop/server does not have or specific issues?

  • ZeDoTelhado@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    I am planning after installing Ubuntu server and get some setup done, to actually sit it out and understand how much the fan is going and how I expect this to be an issue. Since my backups are probably going to be once in a week or so, I do not expect the laptop to have a lot of work (for now is just for file backup, no other services in there except tailscale)

      • lka1988@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        If the laptop has a way to limit charging to, say, 70% in order to not turn into a spicy pillow, it would be viable. I have an older HP Elitebook 8440p laptop running as a server of sorts in my cluster, but the battery is no longer capable of holding a charge at all because it’s always plugged in. I might get a Thinkpad to replace it as there are modifications for those to limit the battery charge level.

        • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          2 days ago

          If the laptop has a way to limit charging to, say, 70% in order to not turn into a spicy pillow, it would be viable.

          Firstly - I love the phrase “spicy pillow”.

          Secondly - It would probably depend on the laptop and its battery health. But also the OS can limit charging I believe? I haven’t looked too far into how it works but I’ve got my laptop setup to only charge to 90% because I’m nearly always plugged in. I don’t know if that relies on any hardware/firmware options though.

          • lka1988@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            2·
            2 days ago

            tlp has more features available for Thinkpads, specifically, so there’s that. I’m thinking more of a laptop form factor but built as a portable server, with the battery specifically designed to be a secondary power source (like a UPS) instead of the primary power source.

            Of course something like that would be incredibly niche, so it makes sense that it’s not really a thing.

            • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              1·
              2 days ago

              Yeah I figure it’s the sort of thing that requires some firmware support at least.

              One thing I’ve always liked about using laptops as servers more than the battery has been the built-in display and keyboard. 😁

      • ZeDoTelhado@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        That is true, however there are 2 things

        • battery of this machine is toast (holds up for half an hour or less)
        • as someone mentioned in another comment: unattended laptops with batteries can be actually bad. Batteries on certain cases can leak and cause fires, so for me, if it can work without it great, otherwise I have to drop the idea
        • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          2 days ago

          battery of this machine is toast (holds up for half an hour or less)

          Fair.

          as someone mentioned in another comment: unattended laptops with batteries can be actually bad. Batteries on certain cases can leak and cause fires, so for me, if it can work without it great, otherwise I have to drop the idea

          I’m not clear on how a UPS would be different in this regard. They both have high-capacity batteries that need monitoring. Unless the UPS is using a different chemistry?

          • IsoKiero@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            1·
            2 days ago

            Laptops use lithium-ion batteries and (at least your Average Joe’s and majority of commercial units too) UPS uses sealed Lead Acid. If lithium ion battery goes belly up it’ll burn your house down. If lead acid battery does the same, at worst, it’ll leak a bit of corrodive fluids to whatever it’s on top of.

            There’s commercial size li-ion UPS’s too, but they require quite a lot of hardware around them to be used safely. Search from youtube (or whatever you like) a cell phone battery explosion and then scale that up to a fridge-sized cell-phone. It’s quite a bit of steel and concrete to contain that amount of energy. And the funny thing about li-ion fires is that lithium ions reacts quite violently with water and the battery contains all the chemicals to keep the fire going, oxygen included.

            So, yeah, UPS is a whole another thing to manage than a laptop battery.

          • ZeDoTelhado@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
            1·
            2 days ago

            From my experience in the past, ups are done to be constantly on, and as far as I know, usually they have failsafe mechanism in case something is not working as intended. Laptop batteries do not have such extensive protection from what I know. However, if an ups is getting old (around 5 years or so) is probably best to change the batteries (if the model allows it)