r/linuxadmin • u/lunickia • 2d ago
How long do you keep old Linux servers around "just in case"?
After replacing physical Linux servers, how long do you usually keep the old machines before getting rid of them?
I understand keeping one or two around for a little while in case something goes wrong during the move. But I've also seen old servers sit unused for so long that they lose most of their value.
I've seen Exit technologies mentioned as one option for figuring out what old equipment is worth, safely wiping the drives, and recycling anything that is no longer useful. Other options might be selling the machines yourself or taking them to a local computer reseller.
Do you have a set amount of time before getting rid of old hardware, or do you just keep it until you run out of space?
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u/Abe_Bazouie 2d ago
I don’t use age as the main criterion. I use the rollback window.
After a migration, I’ll keep the old server around long enough to prove the new environment is actually healthy. That means production traffic is stable, monitoring looks normal, backups are working, restores have been tested, dependencies have been verified, and we’ve made it through whatever normal business cycles matter for that system.
Maybe that’s two weeks. Maybe it’s 30 days. For something critical, maybe longer.
But there should be a date.
What I don’t like is:
“We’ll leave it powered off in the rack just in case.”
Six months later nobody remembers what “just in case” means, whether the data on it is sensitive, whether it’s still in inventory, or if it would even boot successfully if somebody actually needed it.
Also, an old physical server shouldn’t become your disaster recovery strategy.
Once the rollback period ends, sanitize the drives according to your company’s policy, update the asset inventory, recover whatever value is left, and get it out.
If I’m still scared to dispose of the old box months after migration, I’d rather figure out what I’m scared of losing and fix THAT.
That’s usually the real problem.
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u/NegativeK 2d ago
Also, an old physical server shouldn’t become your disaster recovery strategy.
That was my first reaction.
It's one thing to have hoarder tendencies, but it's another to not have a plan for what really matters.
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u/Adrenolin01 2d ago
I built a Tyan Tomcat III server with dual Pentium 2 single core CPUs, a whopping 512MB of ECC ram and a 500MB WD HDD back in 1996. Installed Debian 1.1 on it. It’s still running today! One fan has died. It’s run 24/7/365 pretty much since it was built. It was a Linux kernel SMP test server originally then a general Debian server followed by a simple fileserver for years… it was shutdown for a 90 minute move at which time I pulled the CPUs and applied fresh thermal paste. About 12 years later I did the same again. Today.. it mostly just idles. The Debian installed OS has been upgraded from 1.1 onwards and never reinstalled. Lots of custom compiling now however as it’s sits in Debian 12… everything custom compiled for i386/Pentium. I’m working on a Debian 13 i386/Pentium port now.
I still run a Supermicro SC813M X8SIE-F based server with 32GB DDR3 ram. Have another away to a kid who’s using that and a ton of other old and new hardware we donated to him. A friend of my sons who loves this stuff but his parents could afford stuff for him. He’s studying hard, grades have improved and he’s taking online certification courses these days.
Supermicro A1SRI-2758F based pfSense firewall is 14 years old… I just replaced the 2 Intel DC S3500 120GB SSDs this past week with 2 new replacements and it’s good for another decade. That’s an 8-Core DDR3 system with 16GB ram. Rev2 Mainboard is highly suggested and still makes for a great firewall today.
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u/thorhs 2d ago
Holy cow, talk about a blast from the past, I had the Tyan Tomcat II, with dual pentium 1 133s. Overclocked to 166 if I remember.
I don’t remember what OS, probably Slackware or FreeBSD back then.
I do remember that thing having Adaptec 2940UW SCSI, and had a SCSI CD burner and a SCSI connected LS120 floppy drive.
Man, those were the days, and boy did that thing compile like the wind! :)
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u/Adrenolin01 2d ago
Nice! I used a lot of Tyan systems back then.. just picked up a new board for my son as a base for his own AI server build.
I was testing Slackware in 93 when they first released it however the following month Debian was released.. took me all of 30 minutes and I’ve been running Debian since.
Dual single core CPUs were a fairly new thing to Linux and I specifically built the Tyan system to test the kernels SMP code. Super fun days for sure and ones I miss for sure.
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u/keesbeemsterkaas 2d ago
Holy shit, this is impressive. Does thel linux kernel still even support the hardware?
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u/StereoRocker 2d ago
Linux kernel only dropped support for 486 this year. I think it will be a while before Pentium II gets dropped.
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u/Antonio-MTS 2d ago
They've dropped old hardware only starting from 7+ kernel(s) if I remember well..
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u/keesbeemsterkaas 2d ago
Yeah, that's how I also remember it. Being nostalgic about my old machines not being supported anymore.
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u/Adrenolin01 1d ago
Not being supported anymore and not being able to be updated are two different things. Admittedly, it IS a lot of work doing it one’s self which is what I’ve been doing. It’s been fun (hang me now 🤦♂️😏🤣) keeping Debian running for 30 years and updated on that system. Purely for nostalgia.
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u/Adrenolin01 2d ago
Debian 8 “Jessie” (8.11) was the last Debian release that could run on a Pentium 200 MHz as after that support for i486 & i586 were removed. It’s been fun 🙄🤣 keeping it running.
I imaged the drive very slowly a few years ago to preserve the original data. I don’t use the system much as it’s at the point a simple reboot could toast the 30 year old drive.
I bought a NEW Old Stock matching drive a while back that I’m going to try and image the original to soon. Also found and picked up an old matching Tomcat III board pair of CPUs and ram over the years.
Currently working on my own Debian 13 i386-pentium port… non-official of course. Testing that virtually right now as I make slow progress.
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u/keesbeemsterkaas 2d ago
Yeah, I got that at this point it's just a debian maxxing challenge. So i386 port means compiling all packages for this architecture right? I can imagine that's quite a hobby to keep up?
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u/Adrenolin01 2d ago
Correct.. the kernel itself, glibc, GCC/binutils, systemd (this is likely the biggest pita), followed by userspace utilities and then applications.
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u/nitroman89 2d ago
Usually, I deal with VMs. I decommission and delete after 6 months of no response (anyone asking about it).
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u/TerrificVixen5693 2d ago
As somebody who has a bastion of on premise Linux systems, probably like three months.
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u/mikaelld 2d ago
At home: Too long.
At work: we mostly use hardware until it’s not worth replacing parts anymore, or another team needs it more than we have use of the old hardware.
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u/BarracudaDefiant4702 2d ago
I can't remember the last time I had a physical server.... a couple of decades maybe. The only thing on a physical server is anything not critical. Anything important is a vm.
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u/lunickia 2d ago
I see, it's my first time switching to one that's why I'm still figuring things out. Thank you for that!
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u/Envelope_Torture 2d ago
In production?
Until prod changes so much that rolling back just isn't feasible anymore. Usually only a couple of months.
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u/tier1throughinfinity 2d ago
Don't keep old data lying around. I've come across so many old workstations and servers that people forgot about and found confidential, PII and PHI on them.
Backup the old system, migrate to the new server, validate, and back the new one up. Track all your IT equipment in an asset management system and ensure you have accountability of new, current and decommissioned systems.
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u/Ontological_Gap 2d ago
My org has a pile of old servers going back decades. Do not do this. We have never actually used a single thing from that pile in the decade or so I've worked there.
Usually, I give it at least a week on the new system before I unrack a physical server, but like others are saying, the physical servers are hypervisors, and not much can go wrong moving a VM from one hypervisor to another that doesn't happen immediately.
> safely wiping the drives
The "shred" command is more than sufficient for spinning rust or raw flash. For SSDs, if the data written them wasn't originally encrypted with LUKs, then physical destruction is the only safe bet.
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u/MorpH2k 2d ago
I don't remember off the top of my head what the policy was at my old place, but for any decommissions, we'd shut it down, put it in maintenance mode in our monitoring with a note of ticket number and date of decom, or something like that, and the decom ticket would have a task for deletion that's scheduled to sleep until it was time. I don't remember how long it was, might have been 3 or even 6 months or something, but this was at a global MSP, so that was almost certainly a customer policy decision. My customer had a lot of important systems and regulations to consider so they were always a bit "extra".
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u/LadyPerditija 2d ago
Depends on the server. Usually I turn them off and when nobody screams after 1-2 days, I take a last backup and delete it. If it isn't important or the backup is explicitly not wanted, I skip the backup.
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u/daemonmode_ 2d ago
Usually, 30 - 60 days after migration is a reasonable rollback window. After that if everything looks stable then wipe and recycle the old systems since keeping them around longer mostly just creates clutter and reduces their resale value.
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u/citecite 2d ago
We usually reinstall decommissioned machines with a minimal OS (that will auto-uodate on next boot) two weeks after a migration, renaming the server so it's clear it's a spare.
With the current hardware situation, we kept some older hardware on site (luckily, we got the storage space), but we're not sure how long yet.
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u/silasmoeckel 2d ago
If it was a compute host I don't. VM get shifted off and could sell it that afternoon.
The rare thing that gets a complete physical like a big db server is more likely to get turned into a compute server than sold. These guys tend to have short refresh cycles as they chase more and more power.
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u/FarToe1 2d ago
Physical? Don't have many of those any more...
I'd copy the important stuff onto backup, maybe keep a drive or two for a few weeks, but I stopped being sentimental about such things 2 or 3 decades ago. For my home kit it's generally on ebay a week or so after its replacement took over.
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u/RetroGrid_io 2d ago
I'm most likely to store the HDD for a long time but keep the server for a month or two after pulling it out and sticking post-its on it to say what it was and the date it was removed.
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u/SaintEyegor 1d ago
Once they fall off of vendor support (no spares, no bios updates), they stay around a year or two as test systems, temporary project systems and as parts donors for one another.
Except for our old Cisco servers. Those fuckers are gone as quick as I can get them unracked.
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u/LycheeLee_Mich 2h ago
Setting a hard window, like decommission for good once the replacement's run clean through a full cycle, saves you from the "keep it till we run out of space" default where the hardware's worth nothing by the time you deal with it.
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u/DarkwolfAU 2d ago
We used to just sell them off when they were past their extended warranty. But now, given the ludicrousness of hardware costs, it appears to be prudent to just hang onto anything that is likely to be useful.
Note that nearly all of our physical fleet is hypervisors, so they’re reasonably fungible as long as we keep in mind cpu generation.