Customers of our IT services replace their server hardware every 5–8 years on average, depending on software requirements and the changes to the technology. Oftentimes, the old servers are left in our possession and the inevitable question for our IT staff is, “Do these old servers have a purpose for which they can be used?”
In this two-part series, I will try to answer that question from two points of view. This first part will take the negative point of view. This position is perhaps the easier one to argue, simply because hardware becomes obsolete and software requirements beyond the old server’s capabilities. In part two of the series, we will make the more difficult argument for reusing old server hardware.
Our business customers are now replacing old servers built around 2002–2004 with newer hardware. The old servers generally have Intel Xeon processors that are based on the Pentium 4 architecture, which were designed as 32-bit CPUs with a memory limitation of 4 gigabytes. This typically means the CPUs are not capable of running virtualized operating systems. These CPUs also have single cores, but are usually multi-thread capable.
The CPU’s shortcomings mean they will not run 64-bit server operating systems and don’t allow for memory beyond 4 gigabytes. Windows Server 2008 R2 is available only in a 64-bit version, so the newest operating systems can’t be installed on these servers. Using VMware or Microsoft’s virtualization technologies are not viable on this older hardware.
There are other hardware limitations that also need to be noted. Servers from the 2002–2004 timeframe utilize USB 1.1 technologies, which have now been superseded by USB 2, or even USB 3. The firmware on these servers was not designed to allow USB devices to be bootable. Firmware updates also do not generally account for the newer SATA or SAS drive technologies that are popular in new server hardware. Adding a PCI card for SATA or SAS could be problematic as well.
In the case of a Dell PowerEdge server from 2002, there are no IDE channels and there is a proprietary connector on the motherboard for a floppy disk / optical drive combination. The optical drive is only a CD drive and has no support for DVD media. This becomes a problem when the majority of server operating systems now come on DVD discs.
Most of the Hewlett Packard, IBM and Dell server hardware from the early part of the decade also utilized SCSI interfaces. These are wonderful for the server environment and support multiple levels of RAID. However, SCSI drives sizes top off at 146 GB. On a PowerEdge server with 6 drive bays and configured for level 5 RAID, this means the maximum drive capacity is roughly 750 GBs.
Finally, the server manufacturers only support the older versions of Windows for old hardware. Generally, this means Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 drivers and firmware, and perhaps some versions of Linux like Red Hat Enterprise are supported on old hardware.
In part one of this series, I have argued why you should dismiss trying to repurpose old hardware. Hardware limitations, the lack of software drivers and your requirements for the server will drive your decision on older server usage in your organization.
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