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A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

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Selfhosting on an old laptop (self.selfhosted)

submitted 1 year ago by bloodtide to c/selfhosted

19 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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!

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[–] slaecker 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I started with an old office PC as my first server. Later I switched to a laptop which consumed way less energy and performed well. That worked for years until I got into Raspberry Pis and clusters and lately replaced 2 Pis with SFF PCs because of higher demand on CPU and RAM.

Use whatever works for your needs and expand when it doesn't fit anymore. But the most important thing: Have fun!

[–] bloodtide 3 points 1 year ago

Yes I was just looking around work to see if there were any older Dell Micros in the recycles pile that I could use...I feel this would be the optimal setup for sure.