Do you get to take home depreciated hardware from your workplace?

In the past few months, our department has seen several servers being replaced with beefier hardware, and just this last weekend, all our access switches and the core router were replaced with new units.

I made it clear that I'd love to have some of that equipment for my home lab, and promptly got offered three Cisco Catalysts including all cabling, and rack servers that were used as ESX hosts (good units too, dual Xeon procs, 32GB RAM and 9 NICs each), and even the core router unit (which would never fit at home to be honest).

Do you get to take home depreciated hardware from your workplace, or does your company policy forbid it?

I realise that I may be in a lucky position, so I'm wondering what giveaways you guys have been offered in the past.

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Comments

Tackle

You are very lucky.

We don't upgrade hardware here...ever. If we did I'd have to ebay the old stuff (with works ebay account).

Everyone

The desk I'm sitting at right now came from my old job. They were sitting in the datacenter when it got cleaned out. They were just going to get thrown away. Great basic desks, not a scratch on them. I asked if I could have them, and took 2 of them home.

I could have had a couple of nice 42U racks, at the time they were being thrown out, I didn't know what I'd do with them. Now I wish I had picked them up. I also could have had my pick of old 2U servers, but they were so old, didn't really want any of them. Mostly stuff that was so old it had the Compaq name on it. Several pallets worth of 10/100 switches and routers too.

That was the only job I've had so far that I could have taken any old equipment home from. Everything before that was with the DoD, so old equipment had to go to DRMO. My current job, I've never even seen the hardware that any of the servers I'm responsible for run on. I have no idea what happens to anything that gets replaced.

N2IT

The place I just left donated all end of life items. If you brought something home it was viewed as theft.

Zartanasaurus

N2IT wrote: »

The place I just left donated all end of life items. If you brought something home it was viewed as theft.

Sounds like you need to start a non-profit that accepts old IT equipment.

demonfurbie

ths stuff we have here you wouldnt want

alot of our workstations are p1 huge boxes with crts

Forsaken_GA

Proper disposal of old equipment can be very, very expensive. Alot of companies are more than happy to donate it or give it away to avoid the cost.

Overdash

Yep, I have taken home dozens of old computers, servers, routers, racks, and 11 Cisco 3560's switches. Mostly from mid-sized companies that have upgraded with hardware refreshes and what not. Got to love the IT world when it rewards your hardware enthusiasm!

Devilsbane

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Proper disposal of old equipment can be very, very expensive. Alot of companies are more than happy to donate it or give it away to avoid the cost.

I remember in 1st or 2nd grade we had a bunch of computers donated to our school. It was clear to us they were used, but better than what we had. Good for the school, and I'm sure a nice write off for whatever company wanted to get rid of them anyway. Plus some good PR.

cyberguypr

Great timing this post. I just got clearance to take several EOL boxes home. Dual Xeon, 16gb RAM, quad NICs and a few HBAs. Great for vSphere labbing. Too bad there was no Cisco gear. We gave a bunch of servers to a recycling company just because we needed them gone fast. Some of the stuff had value but no one had time to try to sell it. We reached out to liquidators but got ignored. Oh well.

snokerpoker

I just got a Cisco Switch from a client that recently upgraded. They were actually happy I was willing to take it as it would just sit and collect dust in their IDF.

Priston

I do network cabling and I go to all different kinds of companies. I'm always seeing routers and switches lying around collecting dust.
I see old 2960s and 2800 series all the time like they were just retired and I'm like if only someone had the authority to give me them x.x

shodown

It has to make it to the garbage after that its public property.

blargoe

We usually raffle off old desktops and laptops, or sell them to employees for dirt cheap. I have taken a couple of Cisco 2950's home with the blessing of previous mangement, but usually we don't allow that, or at least have to pay something for it. The server equipment we get rid of is usually to old or cumbersome for any of us to want to take home.

spicy ahi

I work for the DoD so most IT equipment is on a property book somewhere and the only way it comes off is it's disposed of properly (usually turned in to DRMO or destroyed with proof i.e. take pictures of the item being destroyed) I have got lucky a few times though. There was a mini 36U server rack that we needed to get rid of and I jokingly said I'd take it home to house my equipment if I could. My boss looked for it in the property book and when he saw that it wasn't there he told me to roll my truck out back to the loading zone and helped me load it up. The other time was during a switch upgrade. The company contracted to upgrade the switches didn't have a vehicle to dispose of the switches being replaced (mostly 2900XLs, with a few 2950's sprinkled in) and the unit didn't want to take responsibility to dispose of them since it wasn't on their property book so the contractors asked us in the network shop if we wanted to take them. We divvyed up the 2950's and sold the XLs on ebay and gave donated the money to the unit's party fund.

Psoasman

Every time we clean out the conex for a **** run, we can help ourselves.

Chivalry1

When I was doing primarily consulting work I used to get my hands on many used servers, routers, firewalls...etc. These days not much.

Stiltz79

I wish... My job fires people for taking a roll of tape home.... I've seen it happen....

cyberguypr

Stiltz79 wrote: »

I wish... My job fires people for taking a roll of tape home.... I've seen it happen....

Stealing is a whole different story. I don't mind giving away stuff i dont need, but i do mind people stealing frome. I can definitely see a business firing people who steal office supplies and then giving away equipment that otherwise would end up in the trash. Those two practices are not mutually exclusive.

Ch@rl!3m0ng

Funny i have seen this as just been talking to my boss about it today. Our problem is that "Its a HR mine field to take old equipment home"

I wish i could take some of the kit they get rid of at our place but where not aloud.

Devilsbane

Why wait for it to be decommissioned? Who wants that old junk. Just walk into the datacenter, unplug what you need, and bring it home.

Stiltz79 wrote: »

I wish... My job fires people for taking a roll of tape home.... I've seen it happen....

On a more serious note, would they fire you for taking home the empty spindle of tape? Especially if you asked for it very nicely and they were just intending on tossing it in the trash? This is basically what the op is asking.

Turgon

elTorito wrote: »

In the past few months, our department has seen several servers being replaced with beefier hardware, and just this last weekend, all our access switches and the core router were replaced with new units.

I made it clear that I'd love to have some of that equipment for my home lab, and promptly got offered three Cisco Catalysts including all cabling, and rack servers that were used as ESX hosts (good units too, dual Xeon procs, 32GB RAM and 9 NICs each), and even the core router unit (which would never fit at home to be honest).

Do you get to take home depreciated hardware from your workplace, or does your company policy forbid it?

I realise that I may be in a lucky position, so I'm wondering what giveaways you guys have been offered in the past.

We have plenty I could pull rank on and scrounge but I doubt I would have much time to use it!

Stiltz79

We have to get paperwork signed to take ANYTHING out of the building. Our bags are searched on the way in and out. No I don't work for a Government Agency, Law Enforcement or Military related business. If we bring a bagged lunch, they even look in there. If we have to take home dishes from lunch, we have to have a sheet saying we brought it in.

cyberguypr

Stiltz79 wrote: »

We have to get paperwork signed to take ANYTHING out of the building. Our bags are searched on the way in and out. No I don't work for a Government Agency, Law Enforcement or Military related business. If we bring a bagged lunch, they even look in there. If we have to take home dishes from lunch, we have to have a sheet saying we brought it in.

I used to work at a big pharma that sounds exactly like this. Yet somehow RAM and hard drives disappeared from workstations on a monthly basis.

veritas_libertas

While I was working in IT at my college I was given a few old desktops. They are now sitting at home running 2003 server and Astaro. Not the fastest things but, they were free

At my present job we donate everything to charity.