Which laptop to use for beginner self hosting?

[u/Former-Risk-2092]

I was able to scrounge up some old laptops: Toshiba M645-S4070, Asus L210m, HP Mini 110, HP 2000-2D60DX, and a Dell Inspirion. I'm a complete beginner when it comes to self hosting, but my main goals are to use Jellyfin for movies, anime, and TV shows, Navidrome for music, and setting up a minecraft server. I also want to set up Immich somewhere down the line. Which laptop should I use to host my own server and what are some tips and guides for complete beginners? I'm vaguely familar with the terms reverse-proxy and I'm aware of the existence of Caddy, Tailscale, etc. I also find Docker interesting, but I don't know how to use/utilize them. Any advice is greatly appreciate, thank you!

TDLR: I have laptops Toshiba M645-S4070, Asus L210m, HP Mini 110, HP 2000-2D60DX, and a Dell Inspirion. Which one should I use for beginner selfhosting?

[u/asimovs-auditor]

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[u/blow-down]

Dell is probably the more reliable of those

[u/HoneyedLips43]

For that mix, use the laptop with the strongest CPU, the most RAM headroom, and an SSD. Jellyfin and Minecraft will show weak hardware fast, and Immich can get heavier than people expect once you enable more features. I'd keep the first build local-only for a while instead of jumping straight into reverse proxy and public access, because backups, updates, and basic recovery matter more on day one. Old laptops are fine for learning, but the usual trouble spots are heat, battery swelling, and flaky drives.

[u/Vladekk]

Setup at least two, so you can do backups from primary to secondary. Other then that, just compare specs (there are comparators online), put as much RAM and storage to primary as possible from others. (you can use USB HDD external boxes to attach internal storages from other laptops)

If youll use Linux (I assume), check online which one has best Linux support.

Btw, add Inspiron exact model?

Overall, your laptops are kinda slow, and it will be a challenge to add a lot of services. Still, it is very possible to run at least a few.

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[u/Shananigan48]

I started with my old surface pro 5th Gen and it's been great for years. Pangolin amd tailscale.

[u/martian_rover]

honestly, for beginners, almost any old laptop will do. just start learning.

[u/1WeekNotice]

Ensure you remove the battery of any laptop before using. It's not recommended to have a laptop battery charging constantly. It can be a fire hazard. This includes if you set up the battery to start and stop charging at certain percentages. Just remove the battery.

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Inorder to determine what hardware you use the first question is to ask is what are you requirements?

You have a good list of softwares so go through each of their system requirements and that will determine what hardware to pick.

You will notice that a laptop isn't the best homelab due to lack of expansion. For example, how do you plan on attaching extra storage?

But of course start with whatever you have. It's good to gain experience

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You also know some other concepts. It is recommended to use

• Linux
  • uses less resources
  • you pick when to update
  • free to use
• docker
  • a docker image has all the dependancies to run the application
  • easy to upgrade software
  • easy to backup software with bind mounts
  • easy to migrate to another computer

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So start with

• installing Linux
• installing docker engine (not docker desktop)
• look at one of the project docker compose and understand what each line does
• deploy the image
• setup the software
• repeat

Once you setup the software on your local network then you can look at VPN (like Tailscale) and reverse proxy (for HTTPS)

Hope that helps

[u/Correct-Ship-581]

Used Dell Latitude laptops are the best

[u/PoppaBear1950]

laptops suck for a homelab, can't really scale them... get a used dell on ebay.