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What to do with some excess servers
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What to do with some excess servers

I purchased a few servers for a project many years ago.
The project was ultimately a failure, so I brought them home to build an overpowered home lab.

This lasted all of a week, until I got 'the ultimatum'... The wife or the 'jet engine powered heaters'.
After a long deliberation period (ie. one of her home cooked meals), I knew the answer.

So now, my dilemma... What do I do with these servers?

They are all dual 10-16 core Xeon e5-2**0 v2 CPUS (40-64 total threads). ~100-256 GB DDR3 RAM and a mix of 600 GB and 2 TB HDDs. 2 are 1RU, 1 is 2RU (with a front full of 2.5" drive slots)
In addition, I have a couple of 2RU sleds of 12 x 2 TB HDDs and 12 x 600 GB Dell Enterprise drives.

I wanted to sell them, but I am in a SEA country, where there isn't a big demand for this sort of thing. I'm guessing it wouldn't be cost-effective to post them anywhere. There are some colo-facilities nearby, but these are all well beyond my home lab budget.

Are they passed their useful life? Do I donate them to be big scrap heap in the sky? How difficult/profitable is it to DIY hosting company?

Thanked by 2ralf Arkas

Comments

  • My solution is just to hoard old computers for another 20 years and then find that there's really nobody who wants them! Anyone for a couple of pizza-box SparcStation 1s and an ELC? They had a similar fate to your kit, when about 15 years ago I decided I couldn't tolerate the noise they were making in my under stairs cupboard and so retired them for good.

    Thanked by 2Arkas Doragon
  • Donate to me :#

    The specs are still gold from where I am.

  • Actually, that's a good point, I didn't actually look at the specs. The CPUs are actually broadly in line with most of the budget storage providers. Someone could easily stuff these with big disks and stick 100 users on each one, with enough RAM for 1GB each and spare for cache.

  • ArkasArkas Moderator

    @ralf said: Anyone for a couple of pizza-box SparcStation 1s and an ELC

    You gave them away? Are you mad!? :smiley:

  • @ralf said:
    My solution is just to hoard old computers for another 20 years and then find that there's really nobody who wants them!

    ... I'm almost there. They've been unused for more than a year now. It's only when I saw some BF deals on here, that I realised there were similar spec'ed machines still being used. I remembered I had these all packed up in a storage cupboard :smiley:

    I have a stack of rails, which I am hoping may fit these... Starting to wonder if DIY hosting provider in an 'exotic' location is actually a valid option. I mean, I administer these things for my day job... Anyone got an ELI5 guide? How hard could it be to manage a few customers (bahahaha, any providers wanna shoot some death stares my way?)

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