Can You Use a Laptop as a Home Server?
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- čas přidán 14. 06. 2024
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:10 Sponsored message
02:24 Why use a laptop as a home server?
04:17 Unboxing & first impressions
08:57 Teardown
09:57 Installing Proxmox
13:12 Storage
15:19 Setting up an Ubuntu VM
17:24 Testing HW video decoding
19:27 Running more VMs
22:55 Thermals & noise
24:06 Power efficiency
27:30 Outro - Věda a technologie
A quick bit of info that I forgot to include in the video:
- The power consumption was measured with the battery fully charged. I've tried unplugging the battery and running the laptop off of the power brick, but the machine would shutdown midway into the boot process, probably because the power brick alone wasn't providing enough power.
- For Proxmox repos, the correct way is not to remove the subscription repo, but to replace it with the non-subscription version: pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Package_Repositories#sysadmin_no_subscription_repo
Also disable the Enterprise Repo and change the Ceph repo so it removes the errors.
You can also just replace the repo using the web UI with the newer Proxmox versions
11:40 Even the non enterprise Repos get updates, but i think you ment you can not update instantly
Using laptop as a server comes with an advantage of a built-in UPS 😄 I've also been using an old smartphone (OnePlus 6) as a server running debian (mobian) to host mastodon.
i would love a tutorial on this this seems very interesting
sounds very interesting please make a video of it!
there's one guy running a website off a phone hooked up to a solar panel
All of my laptops' batteries have swelled after less than a year. So I switched to a real ups without the laptop's batteries
@@kkazakov That's even more common on phones which often don't have any option to set a battery charge threshold
I have a retired 2015 MacBook Pro working as a home server, and it’s surprisingly easy to use for most use case, Time Machine for my other macs, dockers, file sharing, AirPlay to speakers, WireGuard servers, Jellyfin server, password manager. I mean it can pretty do everything and it has a nice gui to work with
and I use MacBook Pro 2015 as a daily computer. I managed to install Osx Sodom and it works really well.
Love my 2015 MBP. Definitely a great machine.
I think you should make some vidéo or post on some site to show us what you make.
I suppose i'm not the only one who have this kind of job in mind and hesitate to try
Great idea, I checked few laptops which I own and all of them are much better in terms of power consumption when idling, most recent one has plenty of computation power, when works on last gear, but it also idles (with turned off screen backlight) at 3-4W... It's better than my suspended PC and NAS and comparable even with turned off PC/NAS...
What a plot twist when the desktop sipped less power (expecting laptop display to contribute though)
My first homelab was a cluster of Lenovo W530 workstation laptops that were decommissioned from work. Worked pretty well. I put in 64gb of ram and 2 x 1tb ssd. Put proxmox on them in a cluster. The batteries acted as a UPS for each machine.
64GB of RAM in a W530? HOW??
@@dustojnikhummermy guess is across all of them?
@@___echo___that's what i immediately thought as well
I have two laptops with broken keyboards. That means I have two nodes for my cluster! I actually made one a proxmox backup server and one a proxmox hypervisor. Probably switch the pbs to be virtualized on the second node.
This was my first idea when I saw your first NAS video. Great job keep it up!
awesome sauce, loved the delivery!
You can actually disable the enterprise repos within the GUI, you also need to add the non-subcription repo to get proxmox updates, otherwise you'll only get debian updates
Really useful to have these actual power measurements.
I have a ThinkPad x1 yoga as a server. It has a broken screen and keyboard but with a two caddy HDD case and 2 4TB HDD's connected by usb 3 makes a great and small server.
I used an old laptop for my proxmox. 6th gen i5 and it perform really good for my use case.
I'm using old acer travelmate laptop as HA, which runs as official debian-based os(non server, as i discover it with lid open), works perfectly since installation. kinda dusty but works
Damn Wolfgang, I was literally looking this up yesterday!
My home server is a laptop with a broken screen I bought for 50$ and its amazing. Its like having a mini pc + UPS.
What is the SATA USB device you used for the hard drive to plug into the laptop?
I'm using one. I wouldn't say it's perfect, but it does what it should, so I'm happy with it for now. I only miss a second Ethernet port to run pfsense on it.
Video idea: You could try and build a home server using a Framework Laptop motherboard, maybe using a custom case, etc.
With how expensive framework is, unless you really need a laptop you should just get a regular server
I currently have Proxmox running on a Dell XPS15 9500. Sadly, the laptop has some hardware issue with the built-in graphics which causes it to crash when you're actually using it as a laptop. With Proxmox installed, it's been totally stable! I think if I passed the GPU through to a VM it would crash so I'll avoid that.
You can also use an android phone as mini home server if you replace android with linkux 😉
This is something I have wanted to do, but so far I don't see generic images that don't require me to patch the kernel and so on.
7W is still pretty high. For the last week I use Dell Latitude 7390 with i5-8350 as my main router. I replaced WiFi card with Intel i210 on m.2 (wan goes to internal, lan to i210) and it boots right now from USB stick.
I see 3W idle, 7w under gigabit NAT (!). CPU mostly idles at C8 state.
Fun facts: I tried M.2 -> PCIe x4 in place of 2280 SSD. Not only it works, but Dell BIOS was able to boot out of SATA HDD connected to a regular PCIe SATA controller. That took me by surprise as I had Proxmox on that HDD.
Both my two nodes of proxmox are laptops. It's not so much about power, it's because of the battery. I have a script that sez to start shutting down properly when it disconnects from ac.
Does Proxmox VDI also use RDP? I am looking to virtualize my main PC, but if the video playback sucks this might be not a viable option
Thank you for this video. I've been planning to do something like this with laptops for years. How do you do this with the laptop battery as a UPS? Do the VMs then shut down and then the hosts or only when a certain battery percentage level is reached?
Could you maybe elaborate on why you added the following kernel parameters: i915.enable_guc=7 i915.force_probe=46a6?
I use a old gaming predator laptop as a server for more then 2 years now and it’s been great. Even with a power outage I can shut it down nicely
That's gonna use a lot of power though. Likely those i7 chips run hot.
@@SixFingeredAmish idle 16 watts and in use around 45 so not bad imo
Hello, this is pretty cool. I have a question wich adapter did you use at 3:04 for your hdd? In your laptop.
I bought a low end IdeaPad 3 (i3 CPU (11 Gen, 2 core, 4 thread) 8GB RAM & 128 GB M.2 NVMe drive) and immediately upgraded to 36GB RAM and 1TB NVMe M.2 drive, and loaded Debian 12, KVM, VirtualBox, Docker and a bunch of server type VMs and it is sitting here on my desk as a new test box. It's working well, especially for the money (>$300 including upgrades) and allows me to take it with me to work on the VMs and containers while 'out & about'. EDIT: Another advantage is the 4-6 hour battery life with display brightness set to about 50%...
How do you size your docker hosts? in terms of cpu's virtual to physical?
My home server is an old work laptop (they still haven't asked for it back) running Ubuntu bare metal. I am only using it for a local Nextcloud family backup that I launched via Docker manually. I wrote a bash script that runs an additional backup of the Nextcloud directory to a cloud storage provider. Eventually I'll take some time to learn Proxmox, Portainer, etc. and launch this baby to the moon so it's accessible from outside the home.
I have the same setup
I used a Dell Latitude E4310 with i7 M620 and 4 GB RAM as my home server for some docker containers and lightweight vms, it worked quite well
What about its heat?
@@mohammadjasim580 from what I remember about 50*C at idle and 90*C max
I used a netbook to host a Minecraft server for a while in 2012 before switching to a Pentium 4 SFF desktop
I guess that a mini-pc, which is usually quite and power efficient at a laptop level (a Beelink or MinisForum, for example) could represent the best of both worlds.
Love my mini pcs. I have two both with ryzen 5 mobile cpus and they sip electricity. Also plenty fast for what I run on them, they spend most of their time near idle.
I guess a laptop might offer built-in UPS when compared with a desktop build. Useful for a home server?
I am looking at building a NAS server from used parts. Is it possible to take apart a laptop and use the mother board in a chassis? The mother board would have to have some connectors for SATA/SAS or a M2.NMVE with multiple PCI lanes to support 4 drives for raid. It would also have to have a way to add two 10gb ethernet ports. I would never want to run the ethernet or drive off of USB. I assume its not a good idea but I have seen some really high end USED XEON and i7 workstation latptops with very low costs. I am mainly asking because it has been hard to find rack servers or desktops with the specs I need on Ebay or CL. I thought there might be a chance that some laptop motherboards had a PCI header or some other port for HDD/SSD and adding 2 10g Ethernet ports. I would put the MB in a case with room for everything.
I have am i5-8265u equipped laptop and once you twinker it a bit with Throttlestop that thing is INSANELY efficient, especially in Idle. I regularly see it hovering around 1.5W, with a lowest reading on Librehardwaremonitor of 0.6W for the CPU Package!
If it wasn't my only good laptop I wouldn't mind turning it into a NAS/homelab, the only drawback would probably be the lack of Sata ports and inconvenience with powering the HDDs, but apart from that it should be great.
Hi Wolfgang, it was nice watching your video. Just like the attempts I've made before. However, having the disks exposed and supporting them with a power supply is a bit far from comfort. But it's worth a try :)
You know how to give a 360° tour of any hardware that we have on our Home or Office. 😁
My old Lenovo Yoga (first gen) was running as a server for years. I bet it was appx. 5-6 years in total, 24/7. Only upgraded cause I needed a bit more power. A screen, a keyboard, a touchpad and a build in battery if any power issues. What's not to like 👏!
What did you do about the heating problem .. i have one now and it has about 140 f (60 c)
@@mohammadjasim580 With the Yoga? My first gen Yoga was opened apps 20-30deg, and was standing up right. It was hot, yes, but worked as expected. I can't remember what kind of temps, it was facing back then. I moved to a 5. gen Intel 5250U series years ago, and... one year ago, I moved most stuff to a ODROID H3+.
Personally, as a simple server, I use the thin client from HP T620. 2 cores, 16 GB of RAM and power consumption approx. 7-15 W. And they’re cheap~$30
Ditto here. Except I have the 4 core version of the T620 that cost $25. More cores, more better for servers.
Every video u upload is a little holiday for me)
Can u pls make a video about basic web server and website on home server? I’ve tried to learn it myself, but it would be nice to have a vid like that
I use a Notebook as a Homeserver for years (and it looks like at 2:58min with the Terramaster D5-300). IMO its the best way. Its cheaper, more power efficient and only has plus points. It runs out of the box with Windows 10 or 11. You get for 500-700€ an all in one solution with Screen and Batterie. But be carefull with your choice. Get an Intel CPU and a dedicated Nvidia GPU if you want the best solution for Videotranscoding.
Hi, I’m looking at trying to create an IntraNet to run a secure WiFi for 9 Quest2 headsets. I’m going to use it in Juvenile Detention to teach the juveniles CPR and First Aid. I can’t use their internet. I need to connect the headsets and Android tablets to view the headsets to ensure the kids are on the same page of the training. Can I use a laptop to create the internal server and hook a Wi-Fi router to it in order to run these items?
I would love to see a video focused on setting up a home server locally with traefik with a proper and secure network setup from firewall to dns. It would be great if you could cover two basis: entire local (no domain/not exposing services to the public internet) and one where you expose some services to the public such as plex/jellyfin.
For my first server I used Lenovo T410 that I got School from for free when they were getting rid of them. Used that laptop as a server for about 2 years and was rock solid. Just had Ubuntu desktop on it and ran stuff bare metal. After discovering docker I bought tiny PC that could run all my stuff so gave T410 away as a gift to relative.
What Monitor are you using with your MacBook? I find it quite hard to find the right one
I loved the screen protector removal. 🤣🤣
It sounded like you were ripping the guts
out of something and slowly, too. 🤣 😁✌🖖
The power consumption of the laptop was tested with the integrated screen turned off?
What font are you using in you terminal? :)
If any of you is serious about running proxmox, you can get dell Precision m6800 for a lot less, and it has way more native hardware capabilities than you might actually need.
mxm for AMD s7150 ❤
Can you do a video taking an intel NUC for example and building a retro station out of it with an eGPU passthrough and something like RetroArch?
Tried this but lack of IO/SATA made it unbearable after a while. Eager to see how you got around it.
get a paintbrush to scoop the dust in the bezel
I had to migrate to a spare Laptop when my vm-box suddenly died. It worked, but a problem is the missing auto-on feature after a power-loss.
Now how many of these can I fit in a 1u space???
The whole fire risk is highly exaggerated. If done with decent cables and PSUs such a setup even though janky in appearance can be stable for years. All it needs is a little planning and tidying. Pair it with pikvm and you have something close to a proper server but cheaper with lower power consumption.
Literally today i installed proxmox on old HP 450 G4 with i3-7100u. In idle with closed lid (edit of one file in proxmox needed, otherwise notebook goes sleep) it sips 3,8-4,1W. With Windows 11 and two containers running power consumption rised to 4.5-5.1W. Blast!
(0:31) I believe that their PR and marketing departments may have hired a marketing firm that searches CZcams through a bot and sends e-mails automatically, not doing research on CZcams channels themselves. I remember that also happened to JerryRigEverything according to a social media post the host did outside of CZcams.
(Addendum: I think they landed on one of your older videos from before you shifted your focus, assuming they were searching CZcams for "Lenovo")
Actually, come to think of it, I did use to use a mini PC as a home server before moving to a custom-built system with a proper server mainboard. That mainboard's VRMs later failed and I currently use a consumer PC mainboard as a temporary solution until I can afford a proper server mainboard that works.
I’m using my old Microsoft Surface 3 Pro as my jelly fin server running on ubuntu 22.04 Lts so far it’s been working out great haven’t had any issues
Is the Ubuntu server kernel too old for proper C state support for Alder Lake cpus? I tried running something similar on an i5 12500h and in ubuntu server I couldn't go below c3 but booting up a usb live Ubuntu 22.04.3, the system reached as low as c8. I found that ubuntu server LTS 22.04.3 was using 5.15.0-88-generic kernel whereas the regular ubuntu was using 6.2.0-26-generic. Is there a way to fix this?
I'm considering doing this for a file server. Even an ancient laptop would probably be better than a new desktop for this purpose, considering how inefficient desktop PSUs are.
I use my thinkpad x220(i3,12g ram,128 ssd+512 hdd) as a sever , mainly download BT and dock some docker.
I wanted to do this with a framework board, but in the end I went with a beelink mini pc
Used to do that some years ago. You've put in some efforts! Thanks for the great review!
14:57 If that laptop have thunderbolt or high speed usb - You can use DAS enclosure with whatever amount of drives you want (for example QNAP TR-106C, QNAP TR-004).
Laptops are same as mini-pc (minisforum) but with screen and keyboard. You can use as server even surface 4 tablet lol, and with it dock you can connect whatever you want
I've considered it, but a good Thunderbolt DAS is around 250-300€. If you have that kind of money, you might as well build a dedicated NAS.
you could have tried passing the gpu to your Windows 11 installation and see if you can make it seem like its just a normal windows laptop using the internal display of the Laptop
I guess my servers idle power consumption of 24 watts with all drives and vms running is pretty good, 5700G on B450 board, though I only have 2 SATA drives and 2 NVMe drives
I used an old Dell Latitude for about 2 years and the battery swelled up. I suppose it would've happened anyway but running it 24/7 in a cupboard may have sped up the process.
What did you do about its temperature .. i made one out of my old laptop and its temp is around 60 c
Seems like task where used Thinkpads, especially from P series, will shine.
2 of my proxmox nodes are old laptops.
You can, in fact, use a laptop as a home server, no matter how old it is.
P.S.: Coincidentally, I just released a video explaining how to do just that.
oh hi
oh god that laptop motherboard server video is four years old now? I feel ancient
hallo wolfgang,
danke für ein weiteres tolles video!
galigrü
Framework mobo as home server?
👍🏻 for running Haiku as well.
Fans in a laptop are more likely to be more audible due to their fin’s shape and small size.
I use my T420 as my server. Absolute unit she is. I love it.
You know how I know you love the specs of the laptop? You mentioned them twice. Ha! Keep up the good work your videos are a lot of fun.
this video would be interesting with n100 chuwi laptop, especially compared to chuwi n100 box lol, which currently is one of the lowest idle power consumption boxes afaik
oh wow, didnt expect to see my comment in there at the start.
all three laptops ive used as servers are around the 6th to 8th gen intel mobile cpus, ive had some pretty good idle power consumption numbers with all three.
the numbers i put in the comment that got screenshotted were from an i5-6200u in an acer aspire r13.
The built in ups is pretty nice as well as the screen, keyboard, trackpad and the ability to power them of a usb c charging brick that you could also plug something like your phone into for travel if portability is a concern as mentioned at the end, cant get that out of an old sff business pc. (but at that point you may as well just use it as a laptop lmao)
try undervolt, can be done through software from 4th to 10th gen intel
@@mircomputers1221 ive done that
not with tha i5-6200, but with a i5-8250u (got lucky with -0.25mV on the cores) and a 6500T (it has a -0.2mV undervolt on the cores so far, ive not pushed it to instability yet)
both cpus idle at a tiny 0.4 watts (not the entire system), which is just absurd to me.
@@guesswho2778 can also undervolt other parts even if not as much, gpu takes usually same uv as core, cache usually half as much
@@mircomputers1221 ive done that too
You don't want to compare a laptop battery to a UPS. Laptop battery is better : ) The purpose of UPS is usually to give time to switch off the equipment normally or to wait for the diesel generator to start. UPS is not designed to keep the equipment running for a long time.
Battery of 600€ laptop not designed as well 😅
How exactly does the reading of the C-states work. Does it show me the relevant values immediately or must the machine have been switched on for some time without load?
The former
19:19 that actually is normal
i once tried passing through the igpu from my laptop to a proxmox vm and i had the same thing
I'm here just to confirm... My copy of Minesweeper is also broken, on all my machines and the machines at office. That's really weird indeed...
thank you
Hey! Real Quick! You're supposed to change the repo under the Server > Repository so you can disable enterprise via the web gui, and add the non-sub repo for proxmox.
The way you changed it, you don't have an official proxmox repo for your stuff, so long term, stuff in the VE could break
EDIT:
Nevermind, you literally said that in your pinned post that I didn't read.
What is the video you reference here?
Maybe this is a stupid question but this type of home server only allows you to access to all your vm if you are in the local net?
Yes. You can set up a reverse proxy and port forwarding to access it outside though
The usb2 port would be nice to use for pykvm
The 1260P is a power hungry, hot running CPU. I have one in an X1 Carbon Gen 10, and it's the same thing, fan runs a lot and it gets hot. Poor battery life as well @ 5 hours on lowest brightness, doing very little work.
Setting your terminal to comic sans is a power move
You tested the laptop power draw versus an aliexpress Frankenstein laptop CPU soldered onto an 1151 socket? Seems a bit ingenuine IMO
Laptop vs. laptop, sounds fair to me
I didn't see you enable the Proxmox community repository
2:56 I see you got that topton NAS motherboard. How do you like it?
Ive made a video about it
Also, I was gonna try using my MacBook Pro as a server, but apparently Mac OS server was discontinued. Maybe you have some suggestions about that
If it's an Intel Mac, there's nothing keeping you from installing Linux on it.
And if it's M1, you can use Homebrew to install things like nginx, php and mysql, and Docker to run more 'complex' services
@@WolfgangsChannel thank you, would I be able to put a Wi-Fi router on it and allow it to view android tablets? And see oculus headsets by chance?
You might be able to use it as a WiFi hotspot, but I would personally just get a separate small WiFi hotspot/router for your usecase. GL.iNet makes really compact models that you can power from a powerbank, e.g.: www.amazon.com/GL-iNET-GL-MT300N-V2-Repeater-300Mbps-Performance/dp/B073TSK26W
@@WolfgangsChannel I think this would be a much better option. I'll read some more.
hi I received the GL.I net. It seems to work pretty cool. Would I use the GL.I net as the host WiFi network as a standalone not needing the laptop? Or would I still need my laptop as a server to host the secure Wi-Fi?
hold on, you said "DISABLING INTEL MANAGEMENT ENGINE"????
Yeah, the only thing it does is spy on you
I also had a double take when he said that. Want to find out more about that
Not unheard of, and definitely not impossible
github.com/corna/me_cleaner
DId you disconnect the laptop monitor while checking the power consumption?
No, but good point - I'll retest with the display off and let you know
Update: with the display physically disconnected, the idle power draw is around 7.2-7.3W - so pretty much the same.
If you choose to have another separate power supply you should short the ground wires
Good call 👍
beep in front ? why ?
ngl, someone close wanted to throw away some very old toshiba that dated back to 2006 if i remember correctly. celeron, 2 gbs ram, and max of 50 gbs hdd. i use it to host a dns server that removes ads on websites, and block virus and stuff... oretty amazing things you can do with those things. (my internet is already 6 mbps. its slow so it does not affect the speed of my internet connection)
What are the odds? I just did this yesterday