Laptop as Music Server - Wear?

Playing back and serving music files is not particularly cpu-intensive (the heat generated by the cpu being a very sensitive function of what it is doing), and in fact is essentially negligible in that respect if the music is stored uncompressed (so that the cpu does not have to de-compress it during playback).

So given that the files will be on an external drive, pretty much everything in the laptop will probably be little more stressed than it would be if you left the laptop simply idling 24/7. Yes the RAM memory, the chipset that interfaces to it, and various other devices on the motherboard will be processing data continuously while you are serving music, but none of that will contribute significantly to heat, and it won't contribute to mechanical wear at all.

And as far as running a laptop 24/7 under idling or near-idling conditions, there are a significant number of experienced and knowledgeable computer users who would argue that that is actually healthier for the machine than turning it on and off one or two or three times a day, because the thermal stresses of warmup are avoided. There is no conclusive proof of that, and I don't particularly believe it, but the point is that, at least as far as I am aware, there is no conclusive evidence that 24/7 operation will necessarily shorten a laptop's longevity.

So I think that the one possibly significant issue will be mechanical wear and tear on the external drive, which will be a function of how much it is used. Predicting hard drive longevity, as you probably realize, is very hit or miss, and anecdotal indications tend to be all over the map. But with hard drive costs being as low as they are these days, why worry? Just make sure, of course, that your files are properly backed up.

So that you can properly calibrate my response, I'll mention that I am a moderator on a computer-related forum on the web.

Regards,
-- Al

I would think you'll be just fine, though I'm no expert like
Al. I stream movies from my laptop over the network from
time to time. No problems, no failures as yet. It's been on
most of the time for about a year now.
All of my PCs including laptop stay on 24/7. How about using
an eSATA hard drive over the USB or FireWire? That's if your
laptop has an eSATA port?

I've read it is much faster at data transfer theoretically,
up to 3 Gbps per second verses USB 2.0 of 480 Mbps or
FireWire's 800 Mbps. This may come in handy when you need to
transfer large music files.

Another plus using eSATA quoted from a webpage is
"Unlike USB and FireWire interfaces, eSATA does not
have to translate data between the interface and the
computer. This enhances data transfer speeds, while saving
computer processor resources and eliminating the need for an
extra off-load chip."

If your laptop doesn't have an esata port. You can buy a PCI
card to add on to it.

The new USB 3.0 through put, due out next year will be
faster and bi directional at 5 Gbps.

If you want to get elaborate, you could run your entire
operating system off the external eSATA HD. The majority of
the wear and tear would be on it and not the internal. Just
thinking out loud now. lol

FIT PC2

The FIT is so small you can Velcro it to the back of your monitor. Stick a 500GB or 750GB 2.5" laptop drive in it an under full load it only draws about 6 watts.

I put a 30GB OCZ SSD in it as the boot drive. The reason for this is that there are no moving parts which makes it 100% silent while idling and it also generates less heat. My music resides on 2 external 500GB laptop drives; again less heat and noise. Under full load with all three drive "spinning" it draws about 8-9 watts. I've had no problems with it serving 5 simultaneous streams to computers and squeezeboxes around the house. I run it headless and it sits on a shelf above my main PC. I control squeezecenter from my main PC and on the occasional time I need to do maintenance on the OS, I just unplug the monitor and keyboard/mouse from my PC and plug it into the fit.

In the past I used a FlipStart PC as a music server. Again, I had all my music residing on external hard drives. The problem I had with the Flipstart was that the fan it in made a small amount of noise while idling and even more noise while serving music. In addition, I had to keep it in a place where it was assessable to do maintenance. Finally, under full load it drew about 35 watts with all drives spinning.

This Fit PC2 . . . worthy of a look. At one point I was considering an MSI Wind dual core Atom PC (not the laptop version). This Fit PC2 smaller yet . . . sheesh!

It's just I had the laptop sitting quite a bit of time when it wasn't being used for recording my keyboard work. That and a bit of use as a basic PC for relaxing outdoor work. Else, it sits unused.

But the size & economy of these smaller units is something to consider. thanks