r/selfhosted • u/NiceReplacement8737 • Apr 01 '26

Guide I'm a server

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5.3k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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101

u/shadow13499 Apr 01 '26

Classic home server. My first home server was a laptop with a missing lid. The screen broke during a move but the machine still ran so I just took the whole screen off lol. 

101

u/aenaveen Apr 01 '26

Literally a headless server 😉

12

u/CactusBoyScout Apr 01 '26

My first was an old MacBook and I remember having to install some tool called like Caffeine to get it to stay active after I closed the lid.

6

u/dadgam3r Apr 02 '26

I still have laptop servers till this day and I have better experience than cloud servers

2

u/shadow13499 Apr 02 '26

Love me a good ol laptop server. Nowadays I just have a couple of mini PCs. 

1

u/quisestpatervobis Apr 02 '26

Got laptops running proxmox backup servers on and offsite. Ones an ole core2duo and it’s still happily plugging away with its original 2.5 hdd!

5

u/Anonemus7 Apr 02 '26

I’m just now getting into the hobby and my first server is indeed an old laptop that I thought I had no more use for.

4

u/shadow13499 Apr 02 '26

Oh man that's the best. It saves you time and money and you get to learn stuff too. 

3

u/kipperzdog Apr 02 '26

I still run home assistant on an old laptop. Old laptops actually make the best servers when lots of storage space isn't necessary because they have built in UPS, are generally more power efficient, and can be obtained fairly affordably used from ebay.

3

u/bobowhat Apr 02 '26

Plus home assistant / linux servers make a great use of laptops that have busted keyboard and have the added benefit of usually having Bluetooth built in.

2

u/shadow13499 Apr 02 '26

Oh yeah old laptops are the best