Some business owners may be reluctant to integrate a second hand server in their network infrastructure, but there are significant benefits to refurbished hardware.Just like in any other field, it is possible to restore used equipment back to like-new status, ensuring it can provide several years of performance for the company. A reputable refurbishment expert is also a valuable resource when choosing the hardware and setting it up, and will make sure a client doesn’t waste money during a purchase. In the current world of IT, where budgets are increasingly difficult to manage, a trusted dealer can make a huge difference for a company.
Why should a company consider a second hand server for their operations?
Perhaps most importantly, there is plenty of respected hardware available as refurbished equipment. Dell’s PowerEdge, HP’s Proliant, Cisco’s UCS and Oracle’s SPARC are some of the brands available, and all are respected for their reliability and capabilities. In other words, used equipment is safer than a lot of business owners realize.
The PowerEdge and Proliant lines, in particular, are constantly being added to, so both brands are still well-supported by their manufacturers. This also means that a business can find plenty of recently released hardware for greatly reduced prices. In some cases, heavily discounted equipment may only be a few years old, so it can perform well in most applications.
A reputable refurbishment expert can do quite a bit with a second hand server as well, setting it up to a company’s specifications before installation. This means consulting with the company about their network needs and determining what software should come packaged with the equipment. This will be set up prior to the hardware’s placement, so a business can utilize it to its fullest extent the day it is attached to the network. This is, of course, in addition to cleaning the hardware out so that it is ready to be used anew.
But what most company owners look for in a second hand server is affordability, and refurbished hardware does offer a major advantage here. New hardware can be extremely expensive for a business, especially for a small or medium sized business that needs to make an initial upgrade to their infrastructure. It makes much more sense for these companies to go with a refurbished piece of equipment and then scale up as their needs develop. It is easy for businesses to find refurbished rack or blade hardware that can grow with the company, improving its operations as time goes on.
Refurbished hardware offers comparable performance to a new model, and most small and mid-sized business owners won’t even notice the difference between the two. That’s because many applications don’t need the latest and greatest hardware to function. Refurbished servers allow a business to upgrade their network infrastructure without stressing the budget.