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?

  • I_Miss_Daniel@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    3 months ago

    It’ll probably work. Biggest issue will be recovery after power failure as laptops generally stay off.

    Next most likely is CPU fan failure, exacerbated if CPU usage causes the fans to run high and nobody is there to blow the dust out.

    Other than that I’ve had multiple laptops that run as servers over the years and generally they’re fine. Streaming audio for our community radio station, or shoved behind wall mounted TV’s for updateable PowerPoint displays.

    • DaPorkchop_@lemmy.mlEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

      I’ve got an old HP laptop which I’ve been running a Jenkins server on for years. The fan died back in like 2018, and I just kept putting off buying a replacement, so it has been running with no fan for 7 years now. Remarkably it still works fine, although a but slower than it used to thanks to thermal throttling :P

    • ZeDoTelhado@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      3 months 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)