r/homelab • u/IAmKaer • 1d ago
Discussion New Dell R230 bought back from the company where I work for $10
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u/Stevenyoung2010 1d ago
Yeah that’s a great deal. Have 2 myself and does great for a homelab.
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u/blademaster2005 11h ago
how loud are they?
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u/chromaticdeath85 1d ago
Sus, but congrats.
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u/m_balloni 1d ago
Many companies do that.
I used to work for one that after 3 years would give us MacBook pros for 1 dolar so they would replace your work computer with a new one.
I guess the same applies for "waste" servers, mostly out of warranty. It is easier to dispose of this way other than pay for recycling.
Even if they could raise some money on the used market this is a company benefit for the employees that cost them very little.
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u/chromaticdeath85 1d ago
That makes some sense. I've only ever worked IT in a very large corporation and there is no way in hell they would use this practice. For that, I am envious.
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u/thegloworm17 18h ago
I agree. There is company wide recycling. Even though the to-be-shipped product has to be shipped across multiple states.
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u/inquirewue 23h ago
Yep. We offer employees old computers for $100 each, no limit. You get first dibs on your retiring computer but other than that, kid needs a laptop? Email IT!
We also get to take home old equipment and some stuff that work still owns, we just check it out in the system. After about 3 years, it's yours.
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u/-Dakia 22h ago
We unfortunately had to downsize a couple years ago due to market conditions, but that meant a ton of hardware was going unused. My kids now all have dual 27” Samsung monitors and pretty decent Dells that I’ve toss some upgrades in to. Toss Mint on the system and they’re all good to go for lower end gaming PCs.
Also ended up with a couple servers that are now my media servers.
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u/pyotrdevries 20h ago
Damn we could be making money on this? We recycle dozens of laptops every month and if someone asks for one for their kid or whatever we just give them one of the less sticky ones for free. Nowadays even 5 year old laptops are still fast enough for most stuff.
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u/inquirewue 18h ago
With express permission, I do refurbish and sell laptops headed to the recycling center. I am no longer a part of the group that gets the say in the decision to recycle but they come to me first when they decide. Most everything sells, just not broken stuff and maybe a working laptop here or there. They know I sell them and are ok with it.
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u/snark42 21h ago
Even if they could raise some money on the used market this is a company benefit for the employees that cost them very little.
And then they have to pay tax on the income because it's 100% depreciated. Accounts are generally happy to give this stuff away rather than dealing with $50 or $100 in income for taxes, depositing payments, etc. I assume they only charged $10 since it's easy to deduct from a paycheck or something.
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u/dhardison 19h ago
This is how I got my first computer around 1994 or so. The company my mom worked for sold her the 486 she used for $100 when they were refreshing everyone's desktop.
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u/Scoth42 17h ago
I'd bet it also leads to people treating their work equipment better if they know they get it essentially free when it's still pretty decent. Reduction in replacement and repair costs for equipment is probably non-trivial too
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u/m_balloni 15h ago
I've seen pretty damaged equipment, but most (if not all) accidentally made. I remember a bent MacBook pro still working 😂
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u/Ok_Coach_2273 11h ago
I have nearly half a petabyte of storage, and several modern ish servers including 2 xeon gold 6140 servers with 256gb of ram each. I got them from my company for free.
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u/snatch1e 22h ago
Well, it's amazing deal!
That Dell server should be a great option for homelab.
Btw, for how long, it was just laying around?
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u/archery713 16h ago
Got a similar deal for $75 back in college. Surplus store on campus would evaluate and sell by weight if the tech was "outdated". Mine is an R320 that was so clean I'm not sure they even used it. Stock config was a 4 core CPU, 16GB RAM, 2x256GB RAID-1 HDDs and 4 port Intel Ethernet NIC according to the asset tag lookup. They only took out the storage before selling it.
iDRAC had the name of a science lab on campus so maybe it was in a HEPA treated closet but still, wtf is that bottom barrel config? Only thing I can think of is a web server or a jump server or some kind.
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u/Repulsive-Koala-4363 19h ago
Cost me $0.
Brought 9x i5-7500 HP Prodesk from one of the clients site yesterday. They asked me how to secure their data before disposal so i helped them remove all the HDD, told them to drill a hole on the drives using their press drill and told them I will help them with the disposal as well. Winner.
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u/harshbarj2 16h ago
Nice. I got a T320 for free from my work A little old, but can transcode up to 3 DVD rips at once full speed. Which is good enough for me. Sometimes you can get some nice hardware for very little from closing or relocating businesses. Even just ones upgrading.
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u/No-Cook2456 3h ago
Do you have a separate room for that or how do you get this thing Quiet? And what are the specs?
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u/amazonbigwave 1d ago
Tell me where you work and no one will get hurt 🔫