I finally admitted my old server was just a space heater with extra steps

Last month I was troubleshooting a client's Dell PowerEdge that kept throwing thermal warnings. It's a 12 year old R710 sitting in a closet that's barely ventilated. I spent 3 hours cleaning dust out of the fans and reapplying thermal paste, and when I fired it up it still ran hotter than my toaster oven. My buddy who used to run a datacenter told me flat out 'that thing's not a server anymore, it's a nostalgia project.' He was right. I replaced it with a little HP MicroServer I found on Craigslist for $150 and it sips power. The R710 is now sitting in my garage waiting for me to turn it into something stupid. Has anyone else held onto old gear way longer than they should have just because it still technically works?

2 comments

2 Comments

olivia5732d ago

Yep that R710 sounds exactly like the Supermicro I had sitting in my basement for 2 years after I told myself I'd turn it into a Plex server. I finally swapped it out for a Dell Optiplex off eBay for like 80 bucks and it sips power while doing the same job. I was so attached to that old beast because I built it myself back in 2010 but honestly it was just wasting space and electricity. Now it's sitting in my shed waiting for me to do something dumb with it too lol.

angela_park1d ago

The real hidden cost nobody talks about is the heat those things dump into your space. My R710 turned my entire basement into a sauna in the summer, which meant my AC had to work twice as hard. I checked my power bill and that server alone was adding like 30 bucks a month just in electricity, plus the extra AC load. The Optiplex I swapped to barely warms the room at all. So yeah, you're not just saving power, you're saving your air conditioner too.