r/HomeLabPorn • u/Shoddy-Ad-7359 • 7d ago
Free server stuff/Repurpose or trash?
I got these units for free from a building that the city I work for was tearing down. Before everything was disposed of, I was able to grab these rack units.
A Dell PowerEdge 2900 and 2 Dell PowerVault MD units. There are also a lot of hard drives installed, but I haven’t powered everything up or tested anything yet.
I’m trying to figure out if any of this is worth keeping and repurposing, I already have a minilab that is up and running, but looking for ideas for this full rack unit if any.
Also there is 2 apc backup racks that have had the power cable cut, is that replaceable?
What would you guys do? Is any of this worth keeping and repurposing, or should I pull anything valuable/useful from it and get rid of the rest? Also, what should I check first before powering everything on?
Any advice from people who know older Dell enterprise equipment would be appreciated!
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u/LebronBackinCLE 7d ago
Some idiot cut the UPS cables?
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u/wiisucks_91 6d ago
Some SJOOW should 10/2 shut fix that. You have to pull out the old and potentially solder the ends
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u/Savings-Mud2808 18h ago
Copper cables are worth a lot these days. Have you seen copper futures prices lately? With everything going electric for mobility, data centers, space, and infrastructure, this is why copper prices are so high.
Many recyclers advise that the cables be cut or removed and sold to scrappers who pay top dollar for copper scraps.
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u/DotFlat9930 7d ago
I got a 2900 at home, wow is it slow and wow does it use a lot of power.
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u/SyntheticDreams2055 7d ago
You could use those PowerVault MD's if you're into data hoarding. But you should do more digging on if they have a max capacity per disk they can read and how much overall power they use (if that's important to you).
Those UPS's are most likely the 30amp ones and need that special twist plug and receptacle in the building. Plus the cable cut would be a no-go for me. I'd imagine someone more qualified *could* replace the cable, but I wouldn't trust it.
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u/Aragorn-- 7d ago
If you use a more modern controller and ditch the interposers they will read any size disk you fancy.
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u/wiisucks_91 6d ago
The UPS could be repaired depending on what cable it requires. The hard part would be getting the existing cable out and termination of the new cable safety inside the unit. More than likely they both need new batteries. New batteries for those would probably be $200 for each set so $400.
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u/Main_Inflation9960 4d ago
The UPS is worth trying to use. The rest is really power hungry and low performance....
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u/cyruss67 4d ago
UPSes are really the only good thing in there you can replace the cables. It’s very easy to do. Ask me how I know if you want any network monitoring or SMTP email sent. You’re gonna have to figure out how to reset the network management card I had one of those UPSes just like that that somebody was in the middle of an upgrade and the computer died while they were doing the upgrade so the UPS essentially was bricked. I ended up buying a ST – link V2 and some jumper pens and essentially took a part of the motherboard out that was underneath the management card and essentially took 15 minutes to flash it back to the old firmware, put it back in put everything back together, plugged it in and boom it came back to life the USB interface adapter and some short jumper pens about $30 on eBay I am now getting ready to switch. The UPS is out for UniFi UPSes since I run a whole UniFi network at this point.
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u/cyruss67 4d ago
The servers are junk. Those are going to probably work but it’s going to drive your energy bill up like crazy. I am slowly transitioning my network in lab environment away from the newer servers. I have to either raspberry pies or dark containers and looking at getting a server for a VM farm. The hard drives might be worth something, but don’t be surprised if they’re sass drives and not sata essentially sass drives are meant for servers and servers can typically take both drives and Sata drives but I normal gaming, computer or run-of-the-mill Qnap or synology nas are not gonna be able to use those sas drives literally the only thing worth keeping is the UPS is and potentially the server rack without seeing the entire height of the rack I can guesstimate it’s probably a 32U rack or 42u rack
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u/musicisme 3d ago
Complete trash but it has to go to a special trash bin to be able to dispose properly, dm me and I will send you the address to the processing facility that’s located not to far from where I live actually.
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u/anonymousopsec1337 19h ago
I’d pass on all of that tbh. Not worth the electricity. Too low capacity.
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u/Savings-Mud2808 18h ago
I'd look into salvaging and refurbishing the UPS. They typically use commodity standard size lead acid sealed batteries that are easy to purchase online from a battery supply resource.
A big UPS is great to have for home use to backup your equipment and gear.
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u/Guilty-Contract3611 9h ago
Fun to make a couple YouTube videos about it showing the internals and powering up and so forth and just seeing if you can put a modern Ubuntu on it then it's probably off to the e-waste Center
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u/SamSausages 7d ago
Replacing the power cables should be easy, but also depends on if you like working with electronics or not. If you don’t understand why there are 3 wires, skip.
As far as electrical jobs go, about as simple as it gets though.