Why Are Used and Refurbished Servers Important?

Used Servers > Ultimate Guide > Why are Used / Refurbished Servers Important?

Refurbished servers are important not only because of the cost savings, upgrade flexibility, and choice that they offer to IT managers, but most critically due to the mountains of e-waste created each year by aggressive refresh cycles.

As a re-use advocate in my 25th year in this business (and Alta is in its 29th year), I'm extremely passionate about the importance of used servers and IT hardware.

Key Points:

• Refurbished server equipment allows IT departments to maximize their budgets, and complete projects on time, often with even more compute and storage capacity available to deliver to users.
  
  
• They offer an alternative supply chain when the manufacturers are facing raw material / supply chain shortages and shipment delays and an IT project needed to begin yesterday, or a replacement part is required to save a down system.
  
  
• You can meet sustainability goals by extending the life of your existing systems, adding on custom configurations to match your existing EOL hardware, or decommissioning assets for reuse.
  
  
• Reuse is the highest form of recycling. By keeping another server from being manufactured, huge energy savings are realized.
  
  
• By acquiring used or refurbished servers, you're able to extend the life of the equipment that is meant to be used and have a life capacity of as many as 15 to 25 years, according to manufacturer specifications.
  
  
• Used IT equipment allows for legacy equipment to be extended, used and maintained for a longer time cycle.

The manufacturers may only wish to service computing equipment for five to seven years from launch, but having the availability of secondhand parts helps users and maintainers extend life cycles. Secondary market equipment not only supports the manufacturers legacy maintenance plans, but also self-maintainers, so that they can continue to either support their own equipment in-house or to buy third-party maintenance contracts that will support their legacy hardware.

Refurbished servers can come in refurbished tower server format, rack mount server format, blade servers, or other form factors.

The relevance of refurb is not only in the legacy, but also on current gen hardware. Sometimes equipment can be available refurbished within six months of its release, yet also a decade past EOSL.

The secondary market for used equipment can support both the latest and greatest systems as well as legacy servers equally. Having both OEM refurbished certified servers (where the incentive may be to focus on new first) AND independent server refurbishers (like Alta - where we live by "reuse first") creates a great ecosystem and optionality for buyers.

I'm so proud of what our team does here at Alta, helping IT users save money and get what they need, while delaying the pile-up in landfills of all the escrap recyclers can't even fully process. Our independence keeps the circular economy for IT rocking and we do all we can to create a great experience for our customers. I call it: "Saving & Sustainability, without The Shudder"!

Summary: Maximize budgets with used servers! Affordable, available, and sustainable options that exte equipment life up to 25 years. Overcome raw material shortages with alternative supply chains. Achieve IT goals with refurbished tower, rack mount, and blade servers, supporting both current and legacy systems.

Questions about Refurbished Servers?

Contact us anytime… we’ve been doing business in the secondary market for IT hardware since 1995.

info@altatechnologies.com
763-475-2900 | 800-546-2582

Last Updated: 04/03/2024

Additional Reading & Resources:

• Article: What are Used Servers?
• Article: Using & Maintaining Used Servers
• Article: Types of Servers
• Article: New vs. Used Servers
• Article: A More Sustainable IT Future
• Article: Separating ITAD Fact from Fiction
• Article: Maximizing Your IT Budget
• Alta: Used Servers for Sale