Group Blog
Thursday 25 Dec 2008, 10:00am
Recycled servers - green or just naive?
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We've spoken a lot in this blog about the return on investment (ROI) from buying new servers. But some people still argue it's greener and better to keep old servers going, rather than use the raw materials in new servers?
However, as we've said here before, older servers waste more electrical power and take up more space. Replacing them will save money on running costs. But how about replacing with refurbished systems? The idea gets a good consideration over at TechRepublic.
The kit is cheaper, and it probably won't be the latest generation, but some of the disadvantages don't wash, the article says: Refurbs often have the same warranty as new systems - and some regard the previous usage as a "burn-in", weeding out systems with random errors.
So the stigma around refurbs is mostly irrational - but the site does find one serious drawback. You can't always get all the systems you want, and you can't enforce a policy of uniformity. For many companies this is very significant indeed - it's just as well that the economics work out positive on new systems.
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