Refurbished or new?

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Superspeed

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I need to buy a few servers to run mission critical ( but not that hardware intensive )Linux services (VoIP, Firewall etc). I'm of two minds if I should get refurbished units or opt for new units.

The first option is refurbished Dell Proliant DL 380 G4 rackmount servers with the following specs:

2 x Xeon 3.2 Ghz CPU
2 Gig DDR2 533 ECC RAM
2 x 72Gb SAS drives 10000RPM (up to 6 drives)
2 x 400W PSU (Redundant PSU)
2U rackmount case
6 months warranty:erm:

Cost: R4400 inc VAT

The second option is a new Supermicro Rackmount server with the following specs

1 x Xeon E3-1220 3.1 Ghz CPU
1 x 4GB DDR 3 1333 ECC RAM
1 x 500Gb WD RE4 SATAII 7200RPM drive
1 x 350W PSU
1U rackmount case
2 years warranty

Cost: R9500 inc VAT

First server has dual everything but is a lot older tech than the new one. Spares might also be hard to find. Second server is brand new but has almost no redundancy. I can't make up my mind. Has anyone worked with Dell 380's? Are they reliable? I need something that can last at least 2 years and that will be constantly on 24/7 and busy.

Your opinion?
 
If your apps can deal with refurbished go for it, a few of our staff got decommissioned quad CPU servers for R500 a pop last December from Universe Direct. They are all still going strong.

If you are however looking at production environments I would say new. You mention Voip, you clearly haven't seen what most voip providers are running. The cabinet next to ours is filled with desktop Pc's labelled as PBX systems for some rather large companies. You don't really need a powerful server for Voip edit : don't forget about replacement hardware, getting Ram and SCSI drives are not cheap to come by, always good to buy 2 identical servers and keep ons as a replacement.
 
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I would go for the DL380 G4 it is a lovely machine.
Just get some extra HDD's, companies are throwing away the 72 GB ones already so should not be so difficult.

EDIT: Just check about the SAS drives i do not believe that G4 was upgradeable to SAS drives. I was talking above about SCSI ones.
 
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Thanks Ipwn 4. That helps a lot. That's what I was thinking as well - go for refurbished but get a second, identical one seeing that I can get two for the price of one.
 
I'd also go for the refurbished HP (and not Dell like you said) server. The only time when I won't recommend going for that is when you want to upgrade the RAM to like 16GB, because then it is going to cost you a fortune!

We recently had to upgrade the RAM on our old HP Proliant servers and it was very expensive, but at least not as expensive as upgrading servers to 128GB of DDR3 ECC RAM :)

We also have entry level SuperMicro U1 servers at our office, but they don't impress me a bit. Like they don't have any redundancy (in terms of PSU or HDD) and their time drift is insane.
 
Just remember that the power draw on an old server is simply insane(assuming that is a factor you need to take into account.

I've got a baby R210 ii which only has a 250watt psu. When it come to web servers, these things are amazing, on the Windows side we have one acting as the Dc and exchange box on server 2012 and it takes the load of a 15 user company with ease. Might cost more, but doesn't cost 1-2k in power to run each month.
 
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