#Laptop as a nas. Bad idea?

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fleet glade
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I’m looking for feedback on my current setup and whether I should be concerned long-term or migrate to a NAS.

Current setup: Lenovo Yoga 9i (2021) running Bluefin Linux. External SK Hynix Beetle USB-C SSD hosting all my ROMs. ROMs shared over NFS with Tailscale securing access. Running romm Docker for a web UI, and a very debloated Win10 VM running Playnite 24/7 to manage/sync all my libraries (Steam, Epic, GOG, emulated games).

The laptop runs 24/7 as my gaming server/backend and I’m starting to wonder if this is a bad idea: laptops aren’t really built for 24/7 uptime, external USB SSD probably isn’t ideal for constant use, no RAID/redundancy (single point of failure).

Questions:
1️⃣ How risky is this setup for 24/7 use?
2️⃣ Would moving to a dedicated NAS (DIY TrueNAS/UnRAID with RAID HDDs) make more sense for this use case?

Any thoughts/suggestions appreciated

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Not sure why my original post triggered the bot it was literally the same as that

bright hatch
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The storage not having any backup if is important is the biggest issue IMO, you can typically replace any other components but if storage dies then whatever data there is lost. Think is probably a good use case for some kind of RAID but do need to make sure that RAID setup is done in a way you're able to maintain it and recover things if/when they fail and have monitoring in place so you know when something failing too.

Ultimately depends on how important retaining the server is, can either do full disk snapshots, backup key config and save-files and/or have RAID configuration. Depending on specific RAID type and setup they can be more or less resilient to disk failures too (generally trade off in speed/space/redundancy).

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Fans typically the thing that'll die from constant on time, SSDs on-time itself shouldn't matter but have limited amount of wear/writes can handle so I think depending on the amount of read vs write load on the drives they'll be more or less susceptible to "early death" but in any case all storage eventually dies so having redundancy of some sort for that at least I think is most important

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You don't need redundant power supplies and extra CPU and ECC RAM and all to let it run for a long time and replacing failed components eventually isn't the end of the world usually but can be harder to determine what is failing when don't have as much monitoring/reporting in place around components (that you might get on a "real server")

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TLDR think if add redundancy around storage and keep the machine cool and check on it occasionally no reason not to re-use random hardware if it's working

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oh also with regard to dedicated NAS think only "downside" there is sometimes NAS boxes use some weird processor or other hardware that can be hard to find generic linux support for (have run into ones in with SPARC processors.... was a while ago but thing to look out for might be ARM or something not x86/x86_64 so sometimes harder to find prebuilt packages for or whatever), but if can find one that seems like it has enough horsepower and isn't insanely priced then maybe worth doing

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One more thing to add since someone will if I don't 😄 RAID itself shouldn't be considered backup solution for really important files since a whole machine could go down or while re-creating a RAID array/populating a new/replacement disk with data another drive can go down and depending on RAID type if lose 2 disks array could be lost (other options resilient to 3 or 4 or whatever drives failing but trading off usable space for parity bits). In worst case computer explodes somehow 🙂 so if really really need to keep the data off-site backups always good to have as well.

fleet glade
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Thanks yeah i guess the biggest issue is I don't have a plan for when something goes wrong.

I think the USB SSD being used 24/7 is more "dangerous" than running an old laptop 24/7 (I should mention I enabled Lenovo special battery mode that limits the charge to 80% (I think that's the biggest concern besides fans the battery could swell from so much usage and charging) disabled the internal screen , wifi, and Bluetooth)

So the main advantage of a nas is more having lots of sata ports for raid vs the hardware being more reliable (at least for this use case)

The only thing stores on the USB SSD are the actual roms everything else including the windows vm is on the laptop internal nvme

The ROM serving is more read heavy vs write so that a saving grace I think?

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Basically tldr

Semi regularly back up my roms somewhere and maybe VM and docker configs

And I'm fine?

No need to buy a Synology box or something (also I'm not sure if it would even be powerful enough to run a windows vm)

bright hatch
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yeah that sounds like good plan to me, also yeah would be worried about limited hardware on dedicated NAS since focus is on the drives/controller and network for those boxes, if still running VM/docker things on another "service runner" and just using NAS for storage then non-issue but just adding more machines/points of failure too then

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personally use proxmox with zfs for some RAID backed storage for some VMs and NFS/Samba shared storage but do need a machine with lots of extra IO and lots of little trade offs in all the config options for how that's setup

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oh also like synology or whatever dedicated NAS with some RAID can be good place to be backing up some things but again to the "off-site" idea is really best for anything "critical" to be encrypted and somewhere else, for games server ROMs/saves just a big USB connected SSD to take snapshots or dumps of ROMs and stuff maybe enough though too

cloud sigil
fleet glade
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yeah i think the risks with my setup is

  1. usb sdd arnt really meant for coninous usage like that though my use case of servering files mostly so ready heavy not write might be ok but sill should have a backup

  2. laptop battery evently swell and die espeically if you leave them plugged in 24/7 though im using lenovo special battery mode which limits the charge to 80% and i think it runs off the ac power instead of the battery power as long as i keep it plugged in. So in theroy i don't think i should see any more degradtion that what is expected

  3. laptops don't have the same cooling and thermals as a computer or a nas(though thats i guess because nas are more low power and "dumb") so i am puting alot of stress on the componets and the fans especially since im running a vm which could hit the cpu pretty hard although i configered the vm to not use to much resorces as musch as possible only gave it one cpu 4gb of ram ect.

bassicly if iwatching temps keeping the laptop as propperly colled as possible and make semi regular backups i should be fine? (the data on the sdd doesnt change much and saves i aready have a cloud sync setup)

cloud sigil
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i think if there arent any critical workloads that require redundancy or scalable performance its a valid option. as you said you can auto schedule cloud backups or use btrfs for local snapshots.
id remove the battery to make sure nothing happens when you arent there. even tough that would require turning everything on again manually after a power outage

willow copper
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laptop as a NAS has a built in UPS