The bench notes
Server guides & buying advice
Model comparisons, platform explainers and configuration advice — written from the hardware we refurbish, test and ship every day.
Buying guide
Dell PowerEdge R730xd vs R740xd: Which Generation Should You Buy?
A practical comparison of Dell's 13th- and 14th-generation 2U storage servers: socket, memory channels, drive bays, NVMe support, and iDRAC. Where the R730xd is still the...
Buying guide
Power Draw in Practice: What a Server Costs to Run
Idle watts, not peak watts, decide the electricity bill - and configuration moves them more than generation does. Real-world draw figures by chassis and build, the...
Buying guide
Rails, Caddies and Bezels: The Parts Everyone Forgets
The server was a bargain; the missing rail kit, drive caddies and cable arm quietly add up. A field guide to the unglamorous parts - what...
Buying guide
Planning a 42U Rack: Depth, Power and Weight
Racks fail their owners in unglamorous ways: servers too deep for the posts, PDUs short of outlets, floors asked to hold half a ton. The measurements...
Buying guide
The Refurbished Server Inspection Checklist
What separates a properly refurbished server from a wiped pull: the checks worth doing in the first hour - BMC logs, DIMM error counters, drive hours,...
Buying guide
The Home Lab Starter Server: What to Buy First
First home lab server, one box, sensible money: what actually matters is noise, power draw, RAM ceiling and parts availability - not peak benchmarks. The models...
Buying guide
A TrueNAS Build That Makes Sense: Choosing the Chassis
TrueNAS cares about three things: drive bays, an HBA that passes disks through untouched, and enough RAM for ZFS. Refurbished 12LFF and 24SFF platforms deliver all...
Buying guide
Building a Proxmox Host on Refurbished Hardware
Proxmox VE runs happily on ten-year-old enterprise hardware, but a few choices decide whether the box feels fast or frustrating: CPU generation, memory channels, the storage...