I’m currently running homebridge and pihole from an older Lenovo (i5, 256 SSD, 8GB ram) laptop (tweaked power settings to allow idle when closed) hardwired into a switch. I am currently running Ubuntu Server LTS, and have uptime ~2 weeks. I’m a little worried about reliability, I was originally using Ubuntu Desktop LTS, and I had an issue with the OS crashing after a 4 days of basically idle…
So my question is, is this a feasible solution? Should I pursue something like a SBC or migrate the machine to an old desktop instead? I don’t mind working on the machine occasionally, performing maintenance etc but I don’t want to have to troubleshoot the machine on a weekly basis.
I also would like to get into more self hosting, I find it to be super interesting and fun, does anyone have any projects they wouldn’t mind recommending or sharing?
Thanks guys!
Sure. It’s plenty feasible. I’ve used old laptops, desktops, a server board running naked under my desk with parts strewn about… anything can run your homelab.
The only thing you may have issues with long term in a laptop like that is the battery turning into a spicy balloon. Regardless of whether its healthy, or totally “dead” and wont charge, it can and will still start to offgas and can catch on fire. If it has a removable battery, take it out and run the laptop on a normal UPS that is designed to sit fully charged and plugged in 24/7.
It really kind of depends on your luck with the hardware. I’ve used laptops as servers for durations of several months at various points in the past and had no particular problems, just make sure cooling is adequate.
You might consider setting up a Proxmox node if you’re interested in virtualization at the machine level (i.e. having several virtual machines running on one physical machine, which can reduce maintenance headaches and make experimentation easier as VMs can be snapshotted, cloned, and easily replaced)
