Recession Pushes IT To Find New Value In Old Gear 206
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."
and to think, some people made fun of... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:links to reliable resellers? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Hooray for the landfills! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
New value in old gear? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
How to save on licensing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:New value in old gear? (Score:4, Insightful)
With new gear, part of the value is warranty and service. I have somewhere to turn in case of problem.
Yeah, exactly. I hate getting rid of working gear, but the cost of maintaining our own supply of replacement parts is huge.
Re:dead pixels? (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Re:Not my observation (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:and to think, some people made fun of... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yep. I have a somewhat different set of circumstances that have led me to the same conclusion. I teach physics at a community college. There are 7 school-provided Windows boxes in the room where I teach lab classes of 10-25 students, so I decided that if I didn't want one member of each lab group making the graphs while the others watched, I needed to buy some cheap Linux boxes. Good Will has tons of perfectly reasonable systems in the $80-90 price range. They work great with Ubuntu, but they're basically useless if you want to run Windows on them, because (a) they're probably full of malware, (b) they don't come with the Windows install disks, drivers, etc., so you can't do a fresh install, and (c) the version of Windows installed on them is obsolete.
The recession clearly makes the case for Linux on used hardware stronger. I'm in California, which is in a massive budget meltdown due to the credit crisis, low tax revenues, and inability to sell its bonds. If I request a new machine for classroom use, it's likely to be at least five years until it happens, and maybe not even then. The school hasn't been buying new machines for years now, and that means that even older machines aren't available to be transferred from department X to department Y when X upgrades. The problem is that IT is focused on buying high-quality, new machines, because that's what makes their lives easier. Okay, I can kind of see that considering that they have a low ratio of IT staff to boxes, but there's some point at which you have to ask how it can make sense to insist on paying $1000 for a new machine when you could get a used one at literally one tenth of that price.
Re:links to reliable resellers? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:links to reliable resellers? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Sweet (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Old stuff never stopped working (Score:5, Insightful)
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.