What to do with 14 IBM HS23 BLADECENTER (7875AC) blades?

[PGlover]

I was able to acquire 14 IBM HS23 BLADECENTER blades at a local auction at a very cheap price. The specs on the blades are 64GB RAM, 2 x E5-2650V2 2.60GHZ, NO HDD, and product code 7875-E8U. The blades seems to be brand new but I have no way of testing them. I don't know much about the IBM Bladecenter.

Here is a link to the exact unit I have (14 of them).

Lenovo BladeCenter HS23 - Xeon E5-2650V2 2.6 GHz - 64 GB - 0 GB - 7875E8U - x86 Based Servers - CDW.com


I would like to sell 8 of the blades and possibly keep 6 of the blades to build a bladecenter using the 8886 chassis for home use.

How practical is the bladecenter for home use? What would be a good price to sell these on Ebay for?

 

[BlueFox]

They're going to be pretty impractical for home use. If you haven't heard how loud blade chassis are, you're in for a nice treat. Also have the issue of power and getting the chassis with the right modules. Looks like it requires 20A outlets (surprised it isn't 230V) and there's very little availability of reasonably priced chassis on eBay.

Honestly I'd sell it all. It will probably take you some time as there's very little demand for this sort of stuff on the secondary market, but you might get lucky as people do buy them occasionally: IBM HS23 (2) E5-2660, (16) 16GB PC3L-10600R 49Y1528, 44X1948,44x1942 | eBay

Could get yourself a lot of nice Supermicro gear if you manage to sell them! Probably enough for a nice Xeon-D cluster.

 

[marcoi]

Maybe sell the RAM and cpu, those should go fast. Then bulk sell the rest on eBay or Craigslist.

 

[Evan]

Yeah if it's super cheap strip the parts (CPU/memory) and sell it or make some of your own regular servers with the parts.

 

[PGlover]

Yeah if it's super cheap strip the parts (CPU/memory) and sell it or make some of your own regular servers with the parts.

Do you think I can get at least $1500 for all the parts (CPU/memory)? Brand new these blades are about $4500 each based on the CDW link I posted.

 

[StammesOpfer]

You should be able to get $1500 for just the RAM at current prices. 14 blades with 8x8gb @ $14 is $1568.
CPU are going on ebay for $125-150 so 28x$125 is another $3500.

 

[PGlover]

You should be able to get $1500 for just the RAM at current prices. 14 blades with 8x8gb @ $14 is $1568.
CPU are going on ebay for $125-150 so 28x$125 is another $3500.

Wow... That is great.. If I sale the RAM and CPU, is the barebone blade worth anything as well?

 

[Blinky 42]

Sometimes places will buy a blade system with only some of the blades populated to start with for testing or a dev environment and that is an easy target to sell used blades to.

If you have the time it wouldn't hurt to try and sell the complete blades on ebay for a while since you can always part them out. The bladecenters are OMG loud and the ones we had needed 3 Phase because the manager who found them on "sale" didn't read the fine print on the sale configuration. If you have colo space and can source the rest of the parts (switch / pass-through network modules and mgmt) then it can be worth it as they are decently dense systems, but I would take a Supermicro blade setup over the Lenovo one without the support contracts etc in place to make it worthwhile.

 

[PGlover]

I have time.. I will probably sell the complete blade on EBay with a buy it now price of $999. If it does not sell, I will lower the price.

 

[TLN]

I'd try to sell the blades on ebay or elsewhere. Chances are you'll be able to negotiate a price for all the blade.
If not - sell RAM and CPU's, as being said here. Post barebones on craigslist and eventually someone will take it.

 

[PGlover]

Thanks for all the advice so far.

 

[PGlover]

I have listed the blade server on EBay for $1199.00 buy it now price.

 

[cookiesowns]

I'd be interested in maybe taking a few off your hands if you can help me source a chassis.

 

[PGlover]

I'd be interested in maybe taking a few off your hands if you can help me source a chassis.

I only have the blades and not the chassis. If you are interested, PM me.