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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.
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.
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
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.