this post was submitted on 16 May 2025
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Selfhosted

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Selfhosting on old MSI laptop (lemm.ee)
submitted 6 days ago by dan00@lemm.ee to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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Hello preppers! As I prepare further and further for the digital and traditional collapse of society (/s), I finally got to the point of building my selfhosted server.

At the moment I have a single bay Synology nas but it will soon find a new home (🗑️). I was thinking that instead of buying new tech I can be a conscious human being and recycle my old laptop.

My old MSI PE60 2QD with i7 5th Gen, its a very capable machine and having the battery, I think, is better for a sudden loss of power. I replaced it because the hinge and screen broke but I never thrown it away.

I wanted to wipe it and install some linux distro for selfhosting with, I think, Tailscale for access it remotely. I use it to store file, photos, music …normal cloud stuff.

Before wasting hours troubleshooting, I’m sure there are brilliant people here that can give me tips or a link to a simple guide to follow. (Please don’t make me ask the bots).

I’m sure this thread is already open somewhere and I’ll be happy to follow that and delete this, if so.

Thank you lemmings.

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[–] alterelefant@mastodontech.de 1 points 6 days ago (4 children)

@dan00 USB is not ideal. A direct SATA connection would be better for system stability. USB HDD's will work but TrueNas and OMV might display warnings discouraging the use of USB storage. If you can manage to break out some PCIe lanes you can use a PCIe to SATA board, resulting in a more stable setup.

[–] dan00@lemm.ee 0 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Got it… but I don’t know what do you mean with break out some PCIe lanes sorry ahah Like open the case and find a free PCIe port?

[–] alterelefant@mastodontech.de 1 points 4 days ago (2 children)

@dan00 That depends on what is available internally. I can not find exact specifications on the M.2 slot? I get the impression that it might be SATA instead of PCIe. Can you find out what interfacing the M.2 supports?

If it is PCIe you can use a M.2 to SATA adapter to create several more SATA ports to connect hard drives directly. This works better than external USB drives. Much more reliable.

[–] alterelefant@mastodontech.de 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

@dan00 If the M.2 supports only SATA then you could use a different kind of adapter to turn that M.2 into a single SATA port and connect a large(r) 3.5 inch HDD outside of the laptop enclosure.

With PCIe you can create several SATA ports and create a small (software) RAID array.

[–] dan00@lemm.ee 0 points 3 days ago

Laptop specs

I think it only supports SATA, but I should open it up and check it personally. Thank for the tips man.