Why I turned an old laptop into a server

What I'm actually trying to do

<one sentence — the change, not the task. "Convert a laptop into a server" is the task. What does having it change?>

Why now


Product thinking

The problem, stated as a problem
<what was broken before. No solution words in this line — "I didn't have a server" is not a problem, it's a missing solution>

Who it's for
<n=1 is a valid answer. Say it plainly>

What I considered instead

Option Why it was tempting Why I didn't pick it
Cloud VPS / managed hosting <> <>
Free tiers (Vercel, HF Spaces, Colab) <> <>
Buy a Pi / mini PC / NAS <> <>
Just run it on the main laptop <> <>
Old laptop as a server <>

The trade I knowingly made
<8 GB and an i3 buys you something and costs you something. Name both>

What I'm betting on (the assumption that has to hold)
<the one thing that, if false, sinks this>

How I'll know it worked
<a signal you can observe. Uptime? Model response time? The fact that you stopped paying for something? Cost per month?>

What would make me kill it

Experiments under this objective

Where it ended up

Fill this in when it closes — including if it closes badly.

Written by Divyaraj Murugan