Or is this a bad idea?
Reading through !selfhosted, I think I have found a new hobby. I have an old laptop HP ProBook 450 G5 4WU81ES.
16gb ram, solid CPU, shitty integrated gpu, and only 256gb ssd. Barely enough for system and some apps. Battery life maybe 30min unplugged so I take it as an UPS.
So the question again is, can I have permanently plugged external hdd to use as extension for this purpose?
256 GB is plenty. I start most of my servers at 30 GB and add space as necessary. Less for Linux.
I guess it shows what a noob am I, planning to use Windows lmao. Never used Linux tbh but I get it in these cases
Choosing linux is way more important than choosing the right server. Linux and docker compose is the way to go. With that, if you want to migrate to a new server it’s super easy.
That’s the setup when I started.
I picked up an x230 with a broken screen and used it as a hypervisor (proxmox 5.4).
I used whatever resources available to me at the time and learned weird networking (passing through nics for a router on a stick configuration).
I used that x230 until the mobo gave up.
I have some basic stuff (VPN gateway, a web server etc) on my X230 as well
People host stuff on Raspberry Pis, so why not a laptop. One limit you might have is USB speeds, especially if you want to add more drives.
Is the internal drive replaceable? That might be a better option. Alternatively, 256gb is more than enough to install Linux (or proxmox) and serve a lot of useful apps. You only need a ton of space if you are planning on storing media.
