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Recession Pushes IT To Find New Value In Old Gear
buzzardsbay writes "Trying to put a bright spin on a gloomy subject, the folks at eWEEK unearth an emerging trend: There's a booming cottage industry of dealers in refurbished computer and networking gear serving folks on the hunt for 'slightly used' and 'new to you' equipment. The dealers selling the stuff tell eWEEK the equipment is practically new, most of it less than a year old, and that the prices for things like servers and routers are lower than they have been since the post dot-com / Sept. 11 days in 2001. Used gear isn't for everybody, obviously. The story points out that while many of these used IT dealers offer configuration services, they don't do installs, and most are not authorized resellers. They do, however, offer decent warranties, so if you can do some of the work yourself, you'll probably be OK."
the thought that 2009 will be the year of Linux on the desktop. Seriously, I'm running Ubuntu 8.10 on a 700MHz laptop with 256MB RAM and a 20GB hard drive. It works fine given I know that I can't open up 40 apps at once, and it will be a bit slower than my desktop, but it's great for where I use it.
Speaking of desktops, I have several that are nearly 8 years old and running Ubuntu quite well. In fact the 'end users' in my house don't know the difference between the old systems and the new ones.
I'm thinking that the push for re-utilizing older hardware will have Linux on the Desktop very shortly. It's about time.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Not only is getting new stuff more emotional than rational, but the same goes for the OS upgrades.
I have ran my business on a antiquated dual P-III dell server with a raid 5 in it running server 2000 for a while now. it does the job GREAT, it's a file server and domain server for only 20 people. and it will run just fine for another 5 years.
I would upgrade it to Linux and Samba but the adaptec raid card has no stable drivers for Linux. so I either downgrade to software raid or stick with what is working.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Being able to compare prices to something other than ebay without having to make a couple dozen phone calls would be extremely helpful.
Why did this get modded "Troll"?
Granted, we can normally consider eBay more-or-less the definitive price guide for used stuff, but the parent post has a good point - Online 2nd-hand storefronts tend to have an abysmal record when it comes to keeping prices and product availability up to date.
Offhand, I know of only two reasons for doing that - Either they can't keep track of their own inventory, or they play the classic game of "once someone calls for a price, they'll say yes to almost anything"... And I for one wouldn't recommend buying from someone in either category.
If this keeps some gear out of the landfills it's a good thing. The computer and electronics industry are filthy industries. We don't need more heavy metals leaching out of the landfills. Or getting dumped in the 3rd world.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I don't see it. While I see the value in old gear personally, I do not see the value in old gear professionally. Part of what IT does is manage disasters. If you are using old gear, you'd better have some OTHER old gear standing by in case the old-gear-in-use fails. With new gear, part of the value is warranty and service. I have somewhere to turn in case of problem. All of my servers are under next-business-day service warranty. All of my workstations and laptops are too. To me, that is where I see value.
Buy refurb P4 or Athlon64 HP desktop machines from Tiger Direct for $140 bucks. That's the price of the XP Pro license it comes with. Throw in another gig of RAM, load OO and voila, you have a machine that will satisfy 80% of my corporate users for practically nothing. And it is domain-ready.
I'd love to find a place to get LCD panels with dead pixels on the cheap - perfect for a server-in-the-closet...
ebay / craigslist / retail "openbox" deals
So what you're saying is that as demand for used systems has increased, the supply has been reduced and the price of the newly scarce commodity has gone up? IANAE, but that seems pretty normal.
I did a little research on Anysystem just now, and they seem like a pretty shady dealer. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-125495220.html Apparently the owner of Anysystem, John R. Butler, stiffed his vendors (like QSGI ), moved money into other assets and then went back into business right after his bankruptcy. I'm personally staying away from them!
Granted, we can normally consider eBay more-or-less the definitive price guide for used stuff,
Stuff they turn over significant quanities of probablly though sometimes even then thier prices can be higher than elsewhere. Lower volume stuff though fluctuates hugely on auction sites like ebay.
BTW if you are searching ebay to get an idea of prices always do a completed items search. A large proportion of bidders snipe so the value of auctions that haven't ended yet is pretty uninteresting.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
It was a Tektronix, built in the 60's, but it still sold as soon as I made it available.
No doubt - a Tektronix scope made in the 60's will probably still be working after we're all dead. HP stuff used to be like that too.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
Sometimes, we stop using old hardware for a reason. With modern virtualization software, using old PCs for servers doesn't make a whole lot of sense. One could use ten P3 systems @ 700 W avg. use total or two Core 2 systems running virtualization software at 300 W. avg. The Core 2 systems would be faster, more reliable, easier to manage, more capable... and possibly cheaper.