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4 things you should know before turning your old laptop into a home lab
Home lab setups are often characterized by powerful server PCs that possess an obscene number of CPU cores and enough memory to make a RAM-starved MacBook user faint in disbelief. But you can look into more budget-friendly, space-efficient, and low-power devices to house your containers and VMs when you are just starting out.
If you have got a spare laptop lying around, you can even repurpose it as a home lab. Sadly, there are some major issues you should be aware of before you begin self-hosting your favorite services on your aged companion.
The push for thin laptops has one big downfall: overheating and throttling CPUs
Limited slots for storage drives and PCIe cards
External drives and peripherals serve a decent workaround, though
Most home lab systems, barring SBCs and entry-level mini-PCs, have a couple of SATA and M.2 slots where you can attach all your storage drives. Unfortunately, laptops fall in the latter category, with the more portable systems possessing fewer options for storage provisions. Likewise, those planning to integrate high-speed NICs and expansion slots into their servers will be disappointed by the dearth of free PCIe sockets on laptops.
The only silver lining is that you can remedy these with the help of external HDDs, SSDs, Ethernet adapters, and other USB peripherals. Of course, going the USB route will introduce some overhead, but you should not run into too many performance issues when running simple virtualization tasks.
Adding more RAM is a solid way to upgrade its home lab capabilities
Assuming your laptop doesn't ship with pre-soldered memory, that is
As you may already know, CPU cores and memory are two of the most important specs for any home lab. They are also the very aspects where laptops lose out to desktop PCs in the same price bracket. Since there is no way to upgrade the processor on 99.99% of consumer laptops, the memory is the only component you can upgrade to get some extra oomph for your tinkering projects.
Assuming you are planning to host your server on an outdated, budget laptop, upgrading the RAM capacity can make your containers and virtual machines more responsive.
Thermals can be a major issue
Make sure you run your projects with the lid open
Laptops are infamous for their tendency to hit unbearably high temperatures when running complex workloads, and depending on your specific home lab tasks, it is possible for the laptop to end up overheating for long durations of time.
Plus, you will need to be mindful of the air vents on your laptop if you are planning to run the home lab with the lid closed. Many laptops, especially those designed for gaming, are designed to dissipate heat through an open-lid setup and will end up turning into a furnace should you close the lid during home lab operations. In fact, it is entirely possible to damage the keyboard and display after just a few hours of demanding tasks on a closed-lid laptop!
Remove the battery for long-term usage
The built-in battery is more of a double-edged sword
At first glance, a laptop's battery sounds really useful for a home lab setup. After all, you are essentially getting a free UPS that is built into the laptop and does not occupy extra space. If your computing environment is prone to power outages, a decent laptop can technically run a low-end server for a few hours â all thanks to the battery.
But there is a major catch to this free UPS: laptop batteries have a tendency to get bloated over time. For most laptops, this can take a few years, but for those plugged into wall outlets 24/7, you are playing a game of Russian roulette with the battery. I suggest physically removing it to mitigate any and all chances of a fire hazard. But if your laptop does not boot without a battery, you can cap the maximum charge to less than 80% (preferably 40%) inside the BIOS.
Turns out, you can still build a decent home server using your laptop
Despite all the issues we have highlighted so far, laptops make for great entry-level devices to learn about home labs. For instance, the monitor and keyboard are perfect for troubleshooting when something goes wrong with your laptop-powered server. They are also quieter than your average rack-mounted PC, all while occupying a fraction of their space.
But once you start getting the hang of Proxmox and other virtualization tools, a laptop may not be enough to power your projects, and it might be time for you to build a virtualization hub on a dedicated PC.
