5 ms·

nice to see somebody using a thinkpad as a homeserver. I remember comparing low power homeservers, consumer NAS and a refurb Thinkpad and the latter won when c

nice to see somebody using a thinkpad as a homeserver. I remember comparing low power homeservers, consumer NAS and a refurb Thinkpad and the latter won when considering the price/performance and idle power consumption (<5W). You also get a built screen & keyboard for debugging and a efficient DC-UPS if you're brave enough to leave the batteries in. That's of course assuming you don't need multiple terabytes of storage or run programs that load the CPU 24/7, which I don't. These days a rPi 4 would probably suffice for my needs but I still think the refurb thinkpad is a smart idea.

ricardbejarano 7y ago
I don't overload the CPU and my storage requirements are low. 95% of my used storage is stuff I wouldn't care if it got lost, but just nice to have around. I only have around 2GB of data I don't want to lose. I do leave the batteries in. Is it dangerous? I read some time ago that it is not dangerous, but the capacity of the battery drops significantly, I don't care about capacity, and safe shutdowns are important to me. In the past I used an HP DL380 Gen. 7 (which I still own, and wouldn't mind selling as I don't use it), but I had to find a solution for the noise. And power consumption was at around 18EUR for my EUR/kWh. Cramming down what ran on 12 cores and 48GiB of RAM on a 2-core, 4GiB (I only upgraded the memory 2 months ago) machine was a real challenge. The ThinkPad cost me 90EUR (IBM refurbished), we bought two of them, the other one burnt. The recent upgrades (8GiB kit + Samsung Evo 1TB) cost me around 150EUR. Overall a really nice value both in compute per EUR spent and in compute per Wh spent. Really happy with it, I just feel it is not very reliable as it is old.
- Havoc 7y ago
  >I do leave the batteries in. Is it dangerous? Should be fine if they're not swollen / getting very hot
- bluegreyred 7y ago
  >I do leave the batteries in. Is it dangerous? I read some time ago that it is not dangerous, but the capacity of the battery drops significantly, I don't care about capacity, and safe shutdowns are important to me. It's not necessarily dangerous but lithium batteries have a chance to fail and in very rare cases even explode, making them a potential fire hazard. I'm not an expert, maybe someone else can expand on this. If I were to run an old laptop of unknown provenance with a LiIon battery 24/7 completely unattended I'd at least want to make sure that it is on a non-flammable surface without any flammable items nearby. >In the past I used an HP DL380 Gen. 7 (which I still own, and wouldn't mind selling as I don't use it), but I had to find a solution for the noise. And power consumption was at around 18EUR for my EUR/kWh. Yes, I am surprised how many people leave power consumption out of the equation. These days you can rent a decent VPS for the power cost of an old refurb server alone.
  - ricardbejarano 7y ago
    > It's not necessarily dangerous but lithium batteries have a chance to fail and in very rare cases even explode, making them a potential fire hazard. Well, I'm removing the battery and the pseudo-UPS logic right now. The battery looks fine, but I'm not taking any risks, since it's on top of the DL380 but under a wooden TV stand. Thanks for the heads up! You might have prevented a fire.
Havoc 7y ago
Using your previous generation gear as server when upgrading works very well too. Even a 5 year old i5 or whatever has plenty left for server duty

ricardbejarano 7y ago

I don't overload the CPU and my storage requirements are low. 95% of my used storage is stuff I wouldn't care if it got lost, but just nice to have around. I only have around 2GB of data I don't want to lose. I do leave the batteries in. Is it dangerous? I read some time ago that it is not dangerous, but the capacity of the battery drops significantly, I don't care about capacity, and safe shutdowns are important to me. In the past I used an HP DL380 Gen. 7 (which I still own, and wouldn't mind selling as I don't use it), but I had to find a solution for the noise. And power consumption was at around 18EUR for my EUR/kWh. Cramming down what ran on 12 cores and 48GiB of RAM on a 2-core, 4GiB (I only upgraded the memory 2 months ago) machine was a real challenge. The ThinkPad cost me 90EUR (IBM refurbished), we bought two of them, the other one burnt. The recent upgrades (8GiB kit + Samsung Evo 1TB) cost me around 150EUR. Overall a really nice value both in compute per EUR spent and in compute per Wh spent. Really happy with it, I just feel it is not very reliable as it is old.

Havoc 7y ago
>I do leave the batteries in. Is it dangerous? Should be fine if they're not swollen / getting very hot
bluegreyred 7y ago
>I do leave the batteries in. Is it dangerous? I read some time ago that it is not dangerous, but the capacity of the battery drops significantly, I don't care about capacity, and safe shutdowns are important to me. It's not necessarily dangerous but lithium batteries have a chance to fail and in very rare cases even explode, making them a potential fire hazard. I'm not an expert, maybe someone else can expand on this. If I were to run an old laptop of unknown provenance with a LiIon battery 24/7 completely unattended I'd at least want to make sure that it is on a non-flammable surface without any flammable items nearby. >In the past I used an HP DL380 Gen. 7 (which I still own, and wouldn't mind selling as I don't use it), but I had to find a solution for the noise. And power consumption was at around 18EUR for my EUR/kWh. Yes, I am surprised how many people leave power consumption out of the equation. These days you can rent a decent VPS for the power cost of an old refurb server alone.
- ricardbejarano 7y ago
  > It's not necessarily dangerous but lithium batteries have a chance to fail and in very rare cases even explode, making them a potential fire hazard. Well, I'm removing the battery and the pseudo-UPS logic right now. The battery looks fine, but I'm not taking any risks, since it's on top of the DL380 but under a wooden TV stand. Thanks for the heads up! You might have prevented a fire.

Havoc 7y ago

Using your previous generation gear as server when upgrading works very well too. Even a 5 year old i5 or whatever has plenty left for server duty