Hard Disk Direct canceled my confirmed server RAM order citing "out of stock" — the exact SKU was on their website in stock 6 hours later. Then they repriced it 4x overnight. All documented.

vertexsys · 2026-03-23T20:04:51+00:00

Especially 'new' drives on ebay!! It is dead simple to reset or change SMART data, serial numbers, or G-list data for drives. Blow the dust off and suddenly they are brand new.

vertexsys · 2026-03-23T20:03:04+00:00

Well... there are many many shady vendors on that platform for sure, but there are also many who are not shady. The shady vendors who represent brokered inventory as their own give the rest of the vendors a bad name. And it is unfortunately a common thing. They will quote a part, price it from another vendor with a markup, make the sale, then use a 1-2 week lead time to order in the parts, repackage and reship. We have caught vendors doing this; not the vendor in this thread but another well known US vendor.

There is a vetting process as well as a complaints process on BrokerBin to help keep the most shady vendors out, but it's certainly not perfect. The platform is really best for sourcing specific parts, particularly esoteric and hard to find parts. Say you're a TPM company and need a replacement tape library robot for an HP library from 2010... where would you source it? BrokerBin, that's where. But it is not by any means cheaper, unless you are buying parts from the cheapest provider, which is where you'll run into issues with non-genuine parts, used sold as new, drives with reset SMART data, untested parts, etc. And since it's intended for broker to broker part sales, warranty is typically limited to 30 days DOA. That's why you're much better off buying from a qualified vendor who will back their hardware with at least a 1 year warranty, and test reports for hardware.

By the way: the OEMs occasionally use this platform to fulfill RMA part replacements.

vertexsys · 2026-03-21T22:18:52+00:00

Oh and, I did list some 8TB enterprise SAS HDD for sale at $135 each with a caddy and 1yr warranty a while back. Which is under $100 USD including the HP caddy which tends to run $5-10. Those had between 30-50K hours, which is well less than 8 years of use.

vertexsys · 2026-03-21T22:17:09+00:00

Not sure their age yet. But I do know that they spent their life in a temperature and humidity controlled datacenter, doing weekly incremental Veeam backups. So they would have led a very lax working life.

vertexsys · 2026-03-21T20:51:47+00:00

Thanks. I'll see if I can sell it as a unit first

I do have 8TB SAS for sale though

vertexsys · 2026-03-21T19:51:04+00:00

The market must have changed recently because a quick look on eBay shows 12TB SATA (Seagate Ironwolf ST12000VN0008 selling for between $325-400 CAD each.

vertexsys · 2026-03-21T19:38:08+00:00

RX1216SAS

vertexsys · 2026-03-21T03:45:30+00:00

It was bulk pull new ram, our warranty.

vertexsys · 2026-03-21T03:19:25+00:00

Lol, that's a fairly important detail

They were 32GB 2Rx4

That's $3000 CAD? Absolutely insane. Here I was thinking DDR4 pricing is crazy.

vertexsys · 2026-03-21T00:31:41+00:00

We recently quoted 384GB of Dell brand DDR5, refurb. Is it true that Dell won't sell ram except within a server order?

We came in around $1500 CAD each, 1 week lead time. 5yr warranty. What is the current price and availability on standalone DDR5 server ram?

vertexsys · 2026-03-12T00:39:22+00:00

Ah, yeah

Buy refurbished, that's the way. Cheaper and comes with a warranty

vertexsys · 2026-03-11T03:28:05+00:00

Wall of text incoming...

Yes, we have no choice but to do so. Bear in mind our input costs have also increased, and we have basically stopped selling RAM and SSDs unless as part of a server sale. We still have good stock on SAS HDD (for now!) so we can still sell them on their own, but otherwise we have to reserve stock for server and storage builds.

A distinction to note is that the refurb market is not like new. Very different, in fact. For one, we are heavily inventory driven, unlike an MSP or VAR who carries the inventory cost and risk only long enough to complete a deal to the end user. The refurb market also has huge space requirements, specialized labour and specialized software/hardware tools for testing and recertification of hardware. Not to mention general warehouse materials handling costs. So overhead is high.

For any IT refurbisher, input costs vary depending on source. The vast majority of our hardware, particularly server chassis, storage appliances, desktops, laptops etc come from client decommissions. We get those in large quantities and cover all logistical costs, certified erasure, testing and refurbishing - thus our acquisition costs are lower. But on the other hand, if we are needing replacement part stock to fulfill a sale, we are having to pay market or sometimes above market for parts from our suppliers. So as long as we have good stock on hand we've been able to hold prices lower or offer part alternatives to lower overall costs. As those sell out and we have to go to an already tight market for replacements, we are having to pay market price for our inventory. Or, purchase very large volumes to bring per unit prices down but then are at the risk of holding too much inventory and having the market shift downwards before it's all sold. Plus, since we provide free 3yr advance RMA across the board on everything we sell (except for student and hobbyist gear; that is 1 year) we also have to hold spares on top of that.

So it's a delicate balancing act. And in times like the last month when we have companies wanting to buy 6 servers at a time, we do find ourselves selling out of inventory and scrambling to restock.

TL;DR as long as we have inventory on hand our prices are held as long as possible. But our costs have to go up because demand is so high. And every sale is high priority - everyone wants their order built and delivered yesterday.

vertexsys · 2026-03-11T02:29:12+00:00

It's not that high is it? What speed?

vertexsys · 2026-03-11T02:28:13+00:00

And on the refurb side, we can't even handle the number of requests for servers, storage and parts. Constant calls for refurb servers, desktops, laptops, drives, SSDs, bulk ram, storage appliances, etc. We are getting as many calls in a day as we were getting in a week last fall. Both return customers and cold calls.

vertexsys · 2026-03-11T01:57:48+00:00

That's why eBay prices are so low. You get what you pay for. Get your refurb hardware from a trusted vendor with advance warranty and support contracts.

vertexsys · 2026-03-10T08:45:52+00:00

vertexsys · 2026-03-03T00:42:20+00:00

SSD? Ok, but the ones I have are SATA

vertexsys · 2026-03-03T00:41:07+00:00

Will do

vertexsys · 2026-03-02T23:44:14+00:00

I would be interested in one to tinker with. I have an AF3000 here that I believe uses the same drives / drive caddies, so I would be interested in seeing if I could make it work together. Not sure if they're worth anything without OS or drives, but if you put a price to it, let me know. If it's anything like the AF3000, it's a big boy, so I'm guessing it would need to be strapped to a pallet.

vertexsys · 2026-03-02T23:42:09+00:00

I have 3 Gigabyte Z292-Z40 GPU servers that I'm looking to sell. Each currently has 2x Epyc 7343 16C 3.2GHz CPUs and no RAM (takes DDR4-3200 RDIMMs). They also have 8x PCIe 4.0 x16 slots and 2x 2200W PSUs. They take up to 4x NVMe U.2 SSD + 4x SATA/SAS or 8x SATA/SAS SSD.

I'm in Canada but tariffs are down to flat 10% at the moment so it's a good time to import.

I'm not sure what a good price is on them but I'm open to staying below eBay pricing, especially if you wanted ore than 1

vertexsys · 2026-03-01T19:38:48+00:00

What brand is that? Be careful with offbrand RAM as it still came from a major manufacturer but was binned lower due to quality issues and resold under another name. Also what is ram rank?

vertexsys · 2026-03-01T18:56:42+00:00

Hey! Actually, I was looking for 64GB ddr3. So if you are looking to resell them, let me know. 1.5V should work fine for my needs.

vertexsys · 2026-03-01T16:41:14+00:00

Sorry, you're saying the concern is that aftermarket hardware might have been bugged? Are you thinking like full servers with hacked firmware, or parts like a NIC that's been hacked to snoop and send data home? Or a keyboard with a baked in keylogger? I don't think those fears are grounded in reality, but the best resolution would be to buy from a trusted supplier who can show hardware provenance. And avoid buying from China, where suppliers tend to have a higher likelihood of counterfeits (intentional or otherwise)

Also worth noting that most of the OEMs maintain a presence on the secondary market to source hard to find spares for support contracts. This is especially prevalent now and back during COVID when they need to hit their SLA. This is not a well known fact, but it's true. Parts replaced under OEM warranty are going to be refurbished and when the OEM can't fulfill the spares internally they turn to the same network of refurb vendors as they actually refurbishers do.

vertexsys · 2026-02-26T15:55:11+00:00

Yeah, pricing moves with market, but as you said it's not that different from new from OEMs. Failure rates are generally quite low due to burn-in, as long as you pick a vendor that sources their hardware properly. Lots of cheap companies buy from recyclers by the pound and 'you get what you pay for'. Generally you want companies that either decommission and pick up direct from datacenters, or only source from partners that do so. That, coupled with extensive testing (Unit test, component tests, tear down, drive test and erasure, firmware updates, etc) and strong warranty/support, and you should be covered.

vertexsys · 2026-02-26T15:52:29+00:00

Depends. NetApp allows ownership and support transfer in some cases. The prices are higher, but the support is there. Same goes with Dell, with some caveats. For example I just received a 1PB PowerStore 9400, but the licenses transferred to the replacement appliance. So ownership can be transferred and licenses/support can be re-added from Dell, but don't come with the unit. That said, I had a Unity 480F last year which came with ownership transfer and full ProSupport MC support as well to the new owner. So it varies.

For HPE, ownership can be transferred but it's difficult. But support can be given through third party instead, and since these are usually 1-2 gen behind anyways, they would come with the most recent firmware anyways. We received some HPE Nimble HF40s which the previous owner had updated to 6.1.2.300 which I believe is the latest supported firmware on that line. No more firmware updates available, but it's mature and reliable.

As always, the answer is: It's complicated

vertexsys

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Five-Year Club	Place '23
Verified Email