When buying hardware there are usually two options: new or refurbished.

While higher-end customers usually buy new hardware, cost-conscious users might go refurbished and a generation or two down.

For many use cases, refurbished hardware is the rational choice – not a compromise. For instance, we could get a brand-new Cisco Nexus 10 Gigabit switch for $10,000 or a refurbished one for $500. We chose the refurbished one.

The Home Lab (IT Education) and Non-profit Market

A big market for refurbished IT equipment is home labs. If you don’t know, home labs are when IT professionals and tech hobbyists set up enterprise-grade servers and networks at home.

In these environments, new IT equipment is often out of reach. Yet to get an IT job or promotion, you need experience. How do people learn Kubernetes, or Windows Server administration? Using a refurbished Dell server off eBay.

And not just for home labs: I volunteer at a non-profit wireless ISP NYC Mesh. They use refurbished Dell and Supermicro servers to power their network, due to new servers being out of reach for a small volunteer-run organization.

Environment

Manufacturing is resource intensive and environmentally degrading. From the mining of materials to the shipping of components, it’s nowhere close to clean despite “green” promises from manufacturers. This is especially important during the current geopolitical situation.

While we can’t avoid all manufacturing, using refurbished equipment where available prevents unnecessary carbon emissions. This delays the need for manufacturing new equipment when certain features aren’t required.

This isn’t just for IT equipment. Consumers are holding to smartphones longer, and that itself is saving carbon emissions.

Good Enough Technology

Performance gains are for a large part logarithmic. Initially, performance improves “exponentially”, but after a period of time the gains become smaller.

With that, IT departments who don’t need maximum performance or reliability can save money by buying refurbished. It’s often good enough for most use cases considering the slower pace of performance gains.

Conclusion

Refurbished technology isn’t always the answer. For instance, we use brand-new AMD-powered ASRock servers for our flagship Ryzen VPS for maximizing performance.

Also, warranties if provided don’t go to the extent as with new hardware. But this is mitigated with a wide supply of spare parts.

But in many cases, for instance our Storage VPS and core switch are refurbished due to them meeting our needs at a fraction of the cost. Here, the tradeoffs are acceptable.

The use of refurbished hardware where appropriate allows Fourplex to provide competitive pricing on our services by reducing unnecessary expenses.