t43 as a 24/7 soho server

[Roisin]

anyone running a thinkpad 24/7 for whatever reason? I was thinking of getting this pentium.M mini.itx board, but it looks like with a pentium.M cpu, fanless 120w psu, ram and some slick case, it would cost me like $700-$800. I might as well get another thinkpad to do this, as i noticed they sell 2 port pcmcia NICs, that would allow me to build a 5 port router, and run freebsd on it, as i need to do some wierd routing and run a custom app on it...

i suppose i could figure out a way to shut the hardisk off for most of the time, so would you say the rest of the thinkpad's guts could survive running 24/7?

[NoteGuy]

I run my T43P 24/7 (although, it is pretty new).

I have run my ThinkPad's like that in the past - and haven't had any problems.

I should say - I have them on 24/7 - a lot of that time is idle.

The warranty covers 1 hour per week usage - or 24 hours a day usage. So get the most out of it!

I have only had one service issue with a ThinkPad (I go through them fast, so maybe that is part of the reason for my good luck.) The problem I had was some years ago with a T2X series. The display failed. Sent it to IBM - had it back in 2 days - issue resolved - great service.

A laptop as a server of any kind, usally isn't the most cost effective solution. If you are going to use one - then at least your a using a ThinkPad.

[christopher_wolf]

Mmmm, 24/7; I just like to think of it as a way to spend even more time with the T43 Thinkpad

Ah, well...Maybe I need some help.

[DIGITALgimpus]

IMHO not really great.

1. Thinkpads have slow HD's (even 7200 drives don't seem to hold up quite as well as desktop drives can).
2. Heat over long term isn't guaranteed to cause problems, but laptops heat quicker, so your risk of problems is a bit higher.
3. Run 24x7 and higher risk of part failure. Desktop is cheaper to repair parts (look what a hard drive costs for a laptop, vs desktop).

Besides, with the cost of a decent desktop as a server... no comparison.

I've got an old Apple Beige G3 serving as a file server, and development server. It was manufacturered in 1998. Still runs perfectly.

You could do quite a bit for <$1k and get same or better perf/quality than a thinkpad for that purpose.

IMHO if you get a thinkpad for a server, get it because you just insist on a thinkpad, not because it's "better", since I can't really find any reason.

As far as the 5 port router goes. Considering they are extremely cheap to buy these days (much less than a PCMCIA card would cost)... that doesn't make much sense either.

[Roisin]

as i said i need a wierd routing setup (freebsd's PF routing based on UID, and need to run my python+gui app under X). Well i wanted to get that pentium.m board, so the box wouldnt need more than 40-50 watts. But getting the components i wanted, would cost me quite a bit now that i added it all up. Well and the drive, that doesnt matter at all, that wouldnt be a bottleneck in any case...

[JHaislet]

I run my T43 24/7 in the Dock II and have MCE 2005 installed on it. I've not any concerns with running it 24/7 and have had 4 network connections active at one time (3x wireless, 1 gigabit). However, you'd probably be better served with a standard computer for server duties. Using a laptop as a heavy traffic server should only be a temporary last resort.

[aabram]

I have X20 Debian box running 24/7 neatly tucked away against the wall (lid closed, of course). No problems so far, in fact I'm regretting I didn't do that years ago. I'm not running anything long time CPU intensive there and I'm using it for casual development work (MySQL, Apache, SVN repository) and for file storage. Not file server, mind you, but just the storage where to keep files I need to transfer from home to work or between several other computers.

I'd turn it into a router in an eyeblink should I need it, wouldn't hesitate for a second. It's just so much more convenient to have one compact system on the shelf between the books than having a grey box somewhere with thick power cables and all.