Help me think of a creative use for these storage servers...

[Jeff7181]

So, we used to use Exagrid devices for our backup-to-disk environment where I work. For various reasons, we stopped using them and replaced them before the lease was up on them. We've wiped them, so they no longer contain the Exagrid software. The problem ended up being that they were on the same lease as some other hardware, which we wanted to buy out at the end of the lease, and did. However, the leasing company would only let us buy out the entire lease, not individual pieces. So now we own these, which we've learned DO NOT work for our backup-to-disk needs.

We have two of them, and they are model EX10000E. They each have 24 1 TB 7200 RPM SATA disks (WD RE4). They have 16GB of RAM, a single quad core Xeon (not sure of the speed) and an LSI RAID controller.

I'm trying to figure out what we could do with them. We already have dedicated disk on our SAN for file shares. The company is at the point where we simply can't have unsupported hardware in our data center, so they can't be used for anything production, even 3rd or 4th tier systems.

I'm trying to think of something creative to do with them that would be useful for our department, but they're basically only good for storage needs given the single CPU and only 16 GB of RAM.

I just can't think of anything that could use that much storage, aside from illegal file sharing. My first thought was to put FreeNAS on them... but then I don't know what we'd do with 40 TB of space in a non-production setting.

Several of us in the department use FreeNAS at home... I was thinking maybe we could use these as replication targets for our home equipment. We'd just be using the company's power and Internet connection, which may end up being unacceptable at this stage in the company's development. 5 years ago it would have been more likely.

Any ideas?

 

[DominionSeraph]

Sell them. It's not original, but getting something that is useful to your company (money) for something that isn't (NAS when your storage needs are met) is a creative use.

 

[Jeff7181]

Sell them. It's not original, but getting something that is useful to your company (money) for something that isn't (NAS when your storage needs are met) is a creative use.

We've considered doing this before with old hardware, but our accounting department got their shorts in a knot because we had deprecated them and basically said they were worthless, and it would be an issue if we received money for a something that was declared worthless. I'm not an accountant, so that may not be a good description of the issue they had with it... but it's something like that.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Donate them to the Red Cross?

Edit: Open your own cloud-backup service? For friends and family of the company?

You could always donate them to me, I could find something to do with 24TB of space and a 50/25 FIOS connection.

 

[Jeff7181]

Donate them to the Red Cross?

Edit: Open your own cloud-backup service? For friends and family of the company?

You could always donate them to me, I could find something to do with 24TB of space and a 50/25 FIOS connection.

That's what I was thinking with the FreeNAS idea because it's relatively easy to set up. But network utilization is a concern, as is maintenance. This can't be something that I spend even a few hours a month on after setup.

 

[QuietDad]

Donate them to Seti@Home. Massive userbase for publicity sake and it's non-profit for tax sake. They can alays use storage.

 

[Jeff7181]

Donate them to Seti@Home. Massive userbase for publicity sake and it's non-profit for tax sake. They can alays use storage.

That's an interesting idea. I'll look into that.