Have to disagree about laptops. They generally are not suited for 24/7 operation. If someone ran one as a node I doubt it would get past 2 years of age without a hardware failure.
I have Lenovo T420s (2012), Samsung SSD, 4 disks connected via USB hub
operating 3 years without issue/failure
krystof@krystof-ThinkPad-T420s:~$ ls -lt /var/log/installer
total 780
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 460 srp 23 2020 telemetry
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 334255 srp 23 2020 initial-status.gz
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 59 srp 23 2020 media-info
-rw------- 1 syslog adm 315099 srp 23 2020 syslog
-rw------- 1 root root 10876 srp 23 2020 debug
-rw------- 1 root root 115186 srp 23 2020 partman
-rw------- 1 root root 20 srp 23 2020 version
-rw------- 1 root root 2168 srp 23 2020 casper.log
SRP = AUG
no random restarts, network issues etc…it is stable as synology DS918+
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My anecdote: I bought a MacBook Pro in 2008 (the last pre-unibody model) and after about 5 years of using it daily, I’ve retired it to be an always-on home server. I sold it on ebay 3 years ago, because I no longer needed it and but it just refused to quit! This means the laptop, that has been abused for 5 years, worked 24/7 for another 7, and then continued working for indeterminate amount of time with the new owner.
So, YMMV 
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From my experiences from using macbook pros they run super hot if on 24/7, I imagine the only reason you were able to run it was very low usage being on 24/7. Macbooks werent known for the greatest cooling either. They ran super hot… Laptops in general arent designed to run 24/7 either there cooling is very bad for it. Not only that there bad when it comes to getting dust inside. Which doesnt help to thermal throttling.
Oh the fairly recent ones, Intel with amd gpu? Totally. They run super hot even when not 24/7. Even if all you do is boot it up and check email. But that’s AMD problem. You can compare 2014 and 2015 MacBook Pros: they are the same platform with minor tweaks, the biggest change being NVIDIA vs AMD gpu. The difference in thermals is obscene. (I had both). Also remember, the first retina iMac was casually idling the AMD GPU at 102C — it made news. You can get Intel-only mbp, without the discrete gpu, and it will be lukewarm under full load. As was my 2008 Intel+NVIDIA one.
But there is no point (and not just because the keyboards on those are abhorrent) The new Apple silicon ones are entirely different story. I expect my MacBook Air M2 to last decade(s) — no fan, no dust, nothing to fail, and yet ridiculously performant. That will be my next server :). Instead of buying another raspberry pi 8 — it’s a perfect compute device. My 2019(? Don’t remember. The last one with Intel cpu) MacBook Pro is now connected to the power while closed to fetch iCloud updates and do Time Machine backups. I’ve set it to low power mode and still my cats love it. It’s the most overpriced heating mat they had ever experienced.
Im not talking about recent macbook pros refering the M1, M2s, Macbook pros from 2008-2015 All ran hot.
I dont recall them having Nvidia or AMD gpus I especially dont remember mine having Nvidia gpus in them. Could of I did play world of warcraft on them. I had a macbook pro 2008 and a 2015 neither of them had a dedicated gpu and both were very hot when doing any kinda work load. They can not run 24/7 that way. The M1 and M2 are much different though and Apple put a bit more work in them to keep them under control and there not nearly as high powered.
I just remember them running super hot and blowing all the heat at the screen.
That’s different. It’s a conscious choice to trade higher temperature (up to the safe limits for prolonged exposure where human skin contacts) for lower (fan) noise. In other words, they were designed to run hot and quiet. And they absolutely can run 24/7 like this, including at full load. It would have been a bad product if that wasn’t the case.
Some people (don’t want to point fingers) run scientific compute tasks on these computers for weeks on end, saturating both CPU and GPU and nothing horrible happens.
I remember that
Well, heat that CPU wastes must go somewhere. And indeed, on some exhaust was right up the screen
Was never a problem for me — if I’m running something extensive — I use external displays, keyboard and mouse, and laptop is closed, out of sight. It’s extremely unhealthy to use laptop screen and laptop keyboard (on the same laptop) for any non-trivial amount of time…
I would argue that just cause its designed to run hot and quiet doesnt mean it should run hot and quiet just cause its Apple were talking about here, There cpus were known to thermal throttle 99% of the time that they were running any kinda tasks. Very much a design flaw, no cpu is designed to run hot and thermal thottle… Imagine I built a customer a desktop and I would use less fans and way to small heatsink for there cpu, And I told them Its designed to be quiet but your performance is going to be very bad cause your cpu is gonna thermal throttle. But its by design cause I want it to be quiet and not disturb you while your working,.
I remember it being pretty extreme and people actually complaining about it to apple the air was very hot and It isnt good for Hot air to be blown directly at a very expensive screen. You should know that its very very expensive to get any kinda work done to your apple product especially the retina displays, I remember hearing about some horror stories about it.
The bottom of the case would be so hot that you couldnt even sit it on your lap even if you wanted too.
90% of the people that use macbook pros dont use external displays since the laptop itself was 2000+ dollars and had a really high quality screen, I mean why would you less you had another screen with equality the quality of it which didnt really exist back then. Also people who used macbook pros did professional work usually on there laps on there couches. They would also burn there legs if they did any heavy work loads like editing videos…
90% of laptop owners don’t use them more than few minutes a day, making health a non-issue.
Wasnt refering to health issues, and im pretty certain macbook pro owners use there laptop for more then a few mins a day.
Ok, some maybe reach 10 mins.
My MacBook Pro is my main machine. I go with it everywhere, but at work it’s connected to 3 displays, mouse and keyboard, and at home - 2 displays, mouse and keyboard (during work from home thingy) and the only time I use it as a laptop is when talking notes in the meeting or watching YouTube in the evening. But in the former case I don’t look at the screen, and in the former – reach the keyboard.
I cannot imagine working on any laptop more than 10 minutes. It’s agony. Neck strains, eye strain, spine strains… the top edge of the display must be at the eye level, and arms bent at 90 degrees at elbows shall allow fingers hover the keyboard. So unless you are a chinchilla – laptops don’t work for humans.
You shall then get a riser and use external keyboard. Your future self will thank you.
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Before I got a desktop I used my laptop for 5-6 hours a day at min, macbook pros have pretty good screens and it didnt really bother me while looking at it, I can sit at my desktop for 8-12 hours days and it doesnt bother me, But some people can look at a screen for 10mins and have a head ache.
I also have a acer laptop which I cant stand looking at because you go from a 34in screen with high refresh rate to a low refresh rate monitor and low rez and theres just not enough real estate to get any work done, Now I have to have a min of 3 monitors to do anything… But back when I used my mac book that is what I used for everything…