# Laptop as a home server?



## monkeyboy (Jul 1, 2011)

I've been running a FreeBSD PC as a home server for years. It does NAT, file service, FTP, TELNET, print service, etc. But it's time for an upgrade -- it's running FreeBSD 5.2 and has a 586 as a CPU. I'm thinking about using a laptop instead of another PC. Comments on the wisdom of this welcome.

The pros I see:
- low power, important for a 24/7 running at home where I pay the energy bill.
- small size.
- built in UPS -- I hate buying those lead acid batteries every couple of years.

The cons:
- limited expansion of functions, no slots, no TV cards.
- more difficult to do automatic backups, I do intend to attach an external USB disk of the same size as the internal disk, but...
- laptop doesn't automatically reboot after power outages.
- uncertainty whether laptop HD drive can tolerate 24/7 operation. I have done it before, running a laptop 24/7 for about 7 years non-stop, but...

Input welcome.


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## UNIXgod (Jul 1, 2011)

Not that it can't be done. I probably wouldn't.

Why not build a small form factor mini-atx or even micro-atx machine for your server and use a laptop as a client?


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## wblock@ (Jul 1, 2011)

It should work.  The battery will keep it running during power failures but isn't a protective device like a UPS.  Heat will kill a notebook battery eventually, and they cost more than SLA.

Turning off the notebook display will help reduce heat and power usage.  Speaking of that, a desktop Pentium E5200 with 2G, dual Ethernet, and one hard drive only takes 40 watts.


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## fonz (Jul 1, 2011)

monkeyboy said:
			
		

> I've thinking about using a laptop instead of another PC. Comments on the wisdom of this welcome...


Your mileage will probably vary, depending on the exact make and model you're going to use. Generally speaking, laptops aren't meant for 24/7 operation. That doesn't mean it can't be done, but what I see as the biggest disadvantage of laptops is that they tend to be more difficult (and expensive) to fix when something physically breaks. In most cases you can't just swap out a failed component as easily as you can with a PC.

Fonz


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## vermaden (Jul 1, 2011)

@monkeyboy

You forgot 'builtin KVM' in PROS 

About general idea ... yes, it will work, depends on what you need, *Carpetsmoker *runs his 'media server' on a towel and it works: http://daemonforums.org/showpost.php?p=39248&postcount=64

So yes, your laptop would work and 2.5 'laptop' drives can work 24/7 as the 3.5 'desktop' drives.


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## sand_man (Jul 1, 2011)

I use a laptop for a home server. Works nicely and I love how quiet it is. The only problem I have is using two 2TB USB drives on a ZFS mirror. The i/o performance is what you would expect from a USB device but they spin down too often and take a long time to start up again.

I'm happy with it since the monitor hinge is broken, it's virtually useless as a laptop but perfect to sit in my cupboard serving away.


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## rbelk (Jul 1, 2011)

I am using an old IBM laptop for my home server and have had no issues. But there are some things you need to do.

1. Take out the battery. Most Laptops will run with out them and this will also help with the heat problem.
2. Buy an APC UPS and connect the laptop to it, since you don't have a battery installed.

Also configure apcupsd for a graceful shutdown if the battery power goes to low.
3. Turn off the video and use the serial port to connect to the console.
4. Buy a good Laptop Cooling System.

I use the Deepcool N2600 Bamboo Notebook Cooler Pad.
 http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=N2600&cat=FAN
5. Use a router with WIFI and USB if possible. The USB may come in handy.

I also have a backup solution. A Maxtor OneTouch 1 terabyte NAS connected by ethernet to the network. And This setup has worked for me for over 8 years!


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## marthyr (Jul 8, 2011)

Hello,

Using a notebook:

Hardware couldn't be 100% compatible with freebsd. 
I think you're going to use text based configuration. So heat is not a problem
If you are using obsolete hardware could not be 100% reliable.
Using new hardware could be not good idea, so much hardware.

At the moment I am using an atom D510 motherboard with 2 Tb HDD, with a 50USD UPS, newer models could have ddr3 memory.
With this case http://www.ocmodshop.com/thermaltake-elementq-vl5000-mini-itx-case-review/


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## aurora (Jul 13, 2011)

A Laptop is the most energy efficient type of computer so it makes sense to use it as a server 7x24. If I used my laptop as a server, I would take out the battery and use an UPS.


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## graudeejs (Jul 13, 2011)

aurora72 said:
			
		

> A Laptop is the most energy efficient type of computer so it makes sense to use it as a server 7x24. If I used my laptop as a server, I would take out the battery and use an UPS.



Cell phones are also computers. Calculators are also computers. They use much less electricity.

Arm, is way better than x86


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## ikreos (Jul 13, 2011)

If a Commodore 64 can run a web server like this one. I'm sure a laptop can fair well as one.


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## aurora (Jul 14, 2011)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> Cell phones are also computers. Calculators are also computers. They use much less electricity.
> 
> Arm, is way better than x86



In the the future they are likely to be used as server, when needed. The future looks that way. Recently I visited a newly opened Data Center in Turkey and thought to myself, even those data centers will not be needed in the future because the servers will require too little electricity to operate and no need for cooling. And thanks to Fiber channels, every district in the cities will have large bandwidths (Even the cities of Turkey started to have fiber Internet these days) so most won't require a special connection.

As a rule, each device which is to run 7x24 is expected to have low consumption.


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## Zare (Jul 14, 2011)

That's some wishful thinking. Bordering with naive.


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## vermaden (Jul 14, 2011)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> Arm, is way better than x86


ARM is very nice, but its still 32bit CPU, MIPS64 is better for low power servers.


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## ikreos (Jul 16, 2011)

vermaden said:
			
		

> ARM is very nice, but its still 32bit CPU, MIPS64 is better for low power servers.



Just wait for NVIDIA's Project Denver. It is supposed to be a custom 64-bit ARM core.


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## vermaden (Jul 16, 2011)

@ikreos

From one side ... good to hear that, from another ... only binary blob driver for graphics or no at all.


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## ikreos (Jul 16, 2011)

I agree with you on both counts there.


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## _martin (Jul 17, 2011)

I do use HP nc6220 as my home server. Basically only DNS and some file sharing services ( +audio streaming to the kitchen  ). I didn't run into any problems, uptime is 232 days; power was interrupted several times for more than 3 hours.

But .. I see you want to use NAT. So I'm guessing you want to route traffic via it. I did want too but my notebook has only 1x1GBps network card. I tried to use pcmcia NIC, USB dongle - not good, not good at all. I have a 40MBps upload and it was just not good enough - system was ~80% busy managing interrupts. 

So you should check the laptop specification very carefully.


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