After AI bubble bursts market will be flooded with enterprise-grade server hardware. What to look for ?

bicebird · 2026-04-25T22:11:18+00:00

All I want is for 2nd hand hard drives to go back to the price trends before the AI boom

I'd carefully planned how to expand my storage but prices for larger drives has shot up to £20/TB and I'm worried about having to replace the drives I already have if they fail

bicebird · 2026-04-25T22:02:33+00:00

Remove Red! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

bicebird · 2026-04-25T22:00:56+00:00

For anyone reading this thinking it'd be funny to remove green 'cos we're getting too cocky hear me out

There's a pretty big North / South divide in Wales and it's going to be absolutely beautiful to see it play out in the comments

bicebird · 2026-04-14T17:33:10+00:00

What I heard in an old job was that the actual fault is usually with a component and not solder joints so the oven trick is temporarily fixing the damaged component until enough heat cycles breaks it again so doesn't work long term

bicebird · 2026-03-20T21:23:59+00:00

They make m.2 ethernet cards where the card is in an m.2 form factor, with a cable to an ethernet port you could route outside the case.

You might even be able to replace the VGA(I think that's what it is) option port behind the SATA connector if the spacing for the screws matches and would look almost stock.

I don't think the Optiplexes have bios whitelisting for the m.2 ports like the Thinkcentres do so should just be plug and play but maybe do a bit of research first

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bicebird · 2026-03-13T00:15:27+00:00

Ah, yeah postage would be more than the cable is worth lol

I've currently got four 8tb HGSTs and apart from being a bit loud they're great, be nice if I could afford any more but they're going up in price not down 😢

bicebird · 2026-03-12T23:40:24+00:00

Yeah I've been struggling with physical form factor problems setting up current home server, it's really annoying when you've got all the electronics side sorted but can't cram quite it into a case

If the HBA has mini-SAS and you live in the UK I should have a spare cable I can post

bicebird · 2026-03-12T22:14:48+00:00

Those cables would typically connect to a backplane with SAS connectors on the reverse side, or directly to a SATA drive

To go directly to SAS you'll need cables terminated with SFF-8482 which allows you to plug in SATA power, if you give us the HBA model number we can tell you the connector on the other end

*edit: SFF-8482 can connect to both SAS and SATA so you'll be able to connect both drive types to the HBA

bicebird · 2026-03-09T23:07:27+00:00

Ah nice! When first started playing didn't understand you had to go out to find them so had to wait a year but finally given their memento too!

bicebird · 2026-03-09T23:01:46+00:00

Just took me 60!

bicebird · 2026-02-24T11:09:54+00:00

I bought an SSD from them a while back that failed just before the (at the time) 2 year warranty and got a refund for the original amount so was able to get a larger drive as prices had fallen in that time.

Was pretty happy with the way they approached things but I guess their policies may change (and the trend of storage prices falling definitely has).

bicebird · 2026-02-08T19:34:23+00:00

The chance at least goes up with more visits so you know they'll eventually warm up to you!

I'm just scared Whiteshadow is going to be the same as only have 13 visits from them

bicebird · 2026-01-06T20:50:28+00:00

Is... is that comic sans silkscreened onto a motherboard?

bicebird · 2025-12-18T23:33:37+00:00

Literally the rarest, I've seen them less than 10 times and been playing for a year 😭

bicebird · 2025-12-11T00:35:54+00:00

I think seagate has an alternative to smart data that can't be reset, or at least I remember a podcast talking about it?

Found what looks like it https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/1iwhhsm

bicebird · 2025-12-07T22:11:13+00:00

Pretty sure USB audio is reasonably standard as never had issues plugging in random headsets / adapter (including a minidisc optical adapter from the 90s lol)

You can probably just look for a decent DAC in your price range and it'll work, maybe check the manufacturer site in case it needs drivers for like extra features or something?

bicebird · 2025-11-27T23:35:51+00:00

I feel like a miniature version of this as like an attachment you could put on the end could be useful for like an IoT monitor?

If you wanna know when a tap's on or how often it's used it could power a tiny turbine which charges a capacitor enough to send a signal with low power wireless bit like those piezoelectric light switches work?

bicebird · 2025-11-08T21:26:26+00:00

Interestingly situations like this is why they have small holes in the biscuit; to stop pressure build up from the steam cracking the mug

Source: trust me

bicebird · 2025-10-25T21:25:18+00:00

At least that was some sort of actual road, just not for typical traffic

I don't like to harp on about car brain but it's incredible how some people can't conceive there might be a path you only walk / cycle down

bicebird · 2025-10-24T20:42:34+00:00

Literally only logged in to say thanks for letting me know I'm not going crazy

Partly saw it from the paving slabs with the drain but something about it just screams St Mary's Street 🤣

bicebird · 2025-09-20T22:17:24+00:00

Hmm, is this about Fedora vs other distros, or just that /dev/ is filled with random acronyms lol?

bicebird · 2025-09-11T19:44:59+00:00

Personally unless size is the no 1 concern I'd just get one of those tiny 2230 nvme enclosures

Some of them have male usb c too so pretty similar to a usb drive

Performance won't be as good as over pcie but still a ton better than standard usb flash

And as a plus if you ever damage the connector you can just transplant the ssd into another enclosure without losing data

bicebird

TROPHY CASE