I have a couple 7 year-old EFRX WD Reds. Bought them new, before the whole SMR vs CMR issue came about. No issues. Solid drives.

Good point, those are nice to have. Most of my cluster has vPro capabilities, so I can just log in remotely regardless of the OS’s condition.

That’s actually a thing some people do, usually with IFTTT or Home Assistant.

FX File Explorer has a local web-access feature. Start it on your phone and access via local IP, then just turn it off when you’re done.

Don’t use on public wifi, it’s http-only.

LiPo batteries should be stored at 3.7V/cell. That’s basically ~50% capacity (fully charged is ~4.2V/cell). I have several LiPo cells for my RC stuff, some nearing 10 years old, that are still perfectly usable because of this storage method.

Just once, I want one of these international leader gatherings to have everybody laughing in trumps face, in person. Please, just once…

tlp has more features available for Thinkpads, specifically, so there’s that. I’m thinking more of a laptop form factor but built as a portable server, with the battery specifically designed to be a secondary power source (like a UPS) instead of the primary power source.

Of course something like that would be incredibly niche, so it makes sense that it’s not really a thing.

If the laptop has a way to limit charging to, say, 70% in order to not turn into a spicy pillow, it would be viable. I have an older HP Elitebook 8440p laptop running as a server of sorts in my cluster, but the battery is no longer capable of holding a charge at all because it’s always plugged in. I might get a Thinkpad to replace it as there are modifications for those to limit the battery charge level.

It would be nice if there was firmware available for the charge controller that turned the laptop’s own battery into a UPS, avoiding the whole “spicy pillow” debacle.

One can dream…

Remember, any time you see people talking about “the economy”, just replace that with “rich people’s yacht money” and things will start making more sense.