Management Why You Shouldn't Run Pocketmine on a Laptop

There are many, many, MANY reason why you should not run pocketmine on a laptop.

Introduction

I am sick of lap top running junks who buys a quad core i7 at 16 gb ddr2 with a 4200 RPM HDD laptop and say pocketmine suck! "Let's blame Shogicp for all my d**n problems! I hate you shogpicp! YOU SUCK" while spamming the issues on the pocketmine forums and github when bragging about hardware specs, its, *gasp* a laptop.

Well I'm here to tell your FLAWS.

So let's began this guide that will humiliate laptop runners who always complain that pocketmine is buggy and useless and don't know what they are saying when they list their hardware. And also give them a chance of repentance.

Lets begin this.


1) Operating System

A laptop default operating system, usually MAC OSX or Windows, is not suited to run a heavy load server for 24/7/365. It isnt. A laptop factory default software will come with too many junk ware and bloatware. They take up quite alot of CPU and RAM and memory and it's just... awful. Best way to fix this is a nice clean installment of Ubuntu. If you can't do this then just get a VirtualBox and run CENTOS or windows server.


2) CPU

This is where junks brag about most but if you know pocketmine and hardware then it just makes you laugh what they say. A laptop CPU simply SUCKS compared to a motherboard CPU. It has less memory cache and simply less "power" to crunch heavy load and process them. And they get hot very fast since they aren't designed to be runned 24/7. And almost if not all laptop cpu is soldered on the board itself and so unremovable meaning you cannot upgrade it. This is what sets back laptops to run a server. There is a solution however, to find a laptop with each individual cores having a high GHZ like a Pentium or i5 with atleast 3.0 ghz or higher since pocketmine can't handle async task very good and laptops cpu in general are weak compared to motherboard processors aka Intel Xeon 3.8 ghz Haswell processors.



3) RAM

RAM is what usually convince laptop users that their laptop is good. Nope!
I ran 70 players with 40 plugins and 10 infinite maps that are huge city pc ported map. What the ram usage was? 850 MBS.
Instead of beefing up your ram, spend money on a SSD (discuss that soon) or buy a cpu with high GHZ per core.


4) Memory Storage

This is the one that most people ignored, both motherboard and laptop users. I think this is one of the most critical aspects of running a server. Most laptops comes with a low RPM HDD. Get a SSD. If you can't afford a SSD, atleast get a high RPM HDD. Just get a SSD. SSD can improve your computer performance up to 60 times, yes 6,000 percent. And if your going to get a SSD, I recommend samsung as they deliver the best economic/pro SSD.


5) Wifi
No. don't even think about running a server without a ethernet cable. And most small laptop deosn't even have a ethernet port aka access to LAN. If your going to be wireless prepare for angry players about the lag


6) Heating
When 10 or more people start to come on your world, your laptop will start to heat up and then your noisy, unupgradable laptop fan will whir for hours until the player leaves. Also your running into a heating problem risk. The fan will eventually bring dust into your computer (laptops are a pain to take apart) and eventually could start a fire or severely break down the performance. Like i said laptops aren't meant for 24/7 use and will heat up super quickly on heavy loads. If its hot enough, A) It will shut down and leave your server offline until you come back to it (imagine if it done that overnight) or B) The highly volatile lithium battery will catch on fire.

7) Battery
Like i discussed in the Heating problem section this is the biggest issue, the battery. When you leave it plugged on a power charger, the laptop battery will be charge/uncharge charge/uncharge and if you do that 24/7/365 the battery life will suck and if you know about the volatile and flammability of lithium batteries, and AC discharge/charge current, the results are NOT pretty after a long time.


More Comming Soon

Useful!! thank you for making this thread...

Nice tutorial for the people who are still running a server on a laptop.
I use Digital Ocean for hosting, and they are great, though I did just install a Samsung 850 SSD into my laptop.

Add some extra stuff

I have an i5 and an i7. I use i5 for browsing and personal stuff and i7 for my server (Running 8 currently)

My server ran perfectly fine with 30+ players, 24/7 back when I used to host from my laptop. I do, however, use Ubuntu on my laptop.

Yes my server to run properly with 70 players 24/7 Oo

Back in pocketmine 1.3.2 my laptop server ran fine. Until unlimited worlds

You have earned my "Slow Clap" Award. OP.

But on a side note, a latitude with upgraded hardware can run 24/7 with some shutdowns here and there. Since you can leave a latitude with the display turned off, fans on max and running centos server. Nothing really different, a computer is a computer, a laptop wont blow up from being on 24/7 but again it wasn't designed inherently for such a task in relation to part durability.

TLR, I trust my life in a old Dell Latitude, the only that Dell got right.​

Ive seen a burnt laptop from server overloading thats why. I think the main reason why you shouldnt run a 24/7 server is because the battery. How to solve this? Just take the battery out and it will still run oddly.

If you know the architecture of Lipo batteries. I Airsoft/RC and stuff and i have to keep in mind when charging, storing, and using lipo batteries as they have a tendency to blow up sometimes lol. When i charge my lithium polymer battery i put it in a nice fireproof all steel military ammunition case with a lithium polymer safe bag. It just shows how flammable and unstable current batteries are. And also 67 percent of laptop losses are from fire aka the battery.

I use to host from a Laptop Win7 and it was fine till 2o players and 2 plugins
but it took alot of bandwidth

Yah i know somoneone's internet provider cut their internet off running servers and overloading bandwith lol

For me the only problem may be the battery. I run PocketMine almost perfectly. It lags sometimes but it also lags on a normal PC.
(Waiting PHP 7 )
However I don't have same lags on my laptop running CraftBukkit for example

What!?
Motherboard CPU? Every computer, laptop or not, has the motherboard and the CPU is always there (as other hardware). Then you can find also laptops with 6MB - 8MB of cache. If you are looking for CPUs with 16MB, 24MB, 32MB of cache, I think you won't find them on a normal PC (Only a server or a custom PC can have these CPUs)

Let's not forget that a laptop has a built-in UPS.

Don't use a battery then, only mains.

World: [Ended] [Not Ended]

Exactly

i'm not saying you shouldnt always run a server on a laptop, just production servers that are meant for 60 player 24?7 shouldnt be runned on a laptop like some oblivious people do. If your just wanting to play with your friends or test some stuff then sure thats when a laptop it more handy.

By the way, a laptop i7 is no match for a intel haswell xeon processor in production servers. There are many many cpu in general but im talking about what a typical vps would host and a typical home laptop would be.

There are many many exceptioon to all of what i say and i know them clearly, so no need to repeat them again

How about using ramdisk for server storage, like /tmp in linux? lol

People need to ger rid of this silly idea that RAM = Speed.

I was joking, but ramdisk is MUCH faster than 4200RPM HDD, actually. That's all.

Maybe you should test and report how it goes.