Potential repurposing of idle PE T310

It certainly can be done, but just a few questions:

a) A backup DC does not need 32GB of RAM. Are you expecting to do something else with it?

b) It already has 4x1TB drives, why replace them? and what will you replace them with? Do not use desktop/laptop or NAS drives in here. I would strongly recommend certified Dell Enterprise drives.

Hello theflash1932,

I plan to use it for the following:

- backup DC to (new) DC being installed at the main office 

- run Mcafee ePolicy Orchestrator for AV and Access Policy enforcement

- use as a secondary remote backup repository for data stored on main office server, using robocopy or xcopy for nightly copying of changed files from the mai office server over VPN after initial "seeding" of all data from the main office server.  I'll be using Carbonite for DR backup of the main office server, but since I live by the mantra of "you can never have enough backup", this server is an easy enough means of adding another off-site store for backing up the data.

The unit originally shipped in 12/2012, so the equipment / drives etc. is 5 years old, which is 1 thought behind drives replacement, plus there is c. 75 GB of old data on the drives that, although it may never be used again, I'd rather not kill off.  I plan to replace the 4 current SATA drives with a couple of 600 GB SAS drives in RAID-1 setup.  That should suffice for this environment and projected usage, and maybe only 300 GB drives in RAID-1 would be enough as well.  Since the ship date of this server was 12/2012, am also weighing the cost of repurposing it with buying a new basic unit, with a 3rd option of supplying an OEM server.  The OEM route will frankly be much cheaper, but then I have the headache of maintaining the hardware, which is a task I'm much happier leaving with Dell.   Thanks much for your thoughts and recommendations.

Thanks DELL-CHRIS H for your answer!

The unit originally shipped in 12/2012, so the equipment / drives etc. is 5 years old, which is 1 thought behind drives replacement, plus there is c. 75 GB of old data on the drives that, although it may never be used again, I'd rather not kill off.  I plan to replace the 4 current SATA drives with a couple of 600 GB SAS drives in RAID-1 setup.  That should suffice for this environment and projected usage, and maybe only 300 GB drives in RAID-1 would be enough as well.  Since the ship date of this server was 12/2012, am also weighing the cost of repurposing it with buying a new basic unit, with a 3rd option of supplying an OEM server.  The OEM route will frankly be much cheaper, but then I have the headache of maintaining the hardware, which is a task I'm much happier leaving with Dell.   Thanks much for your thoughts and recommendations.

Ok, I get holding onto drives for data reasons (although you could probably easily offload the data from the old drives), but your original post sounded like you were replacing old SATA with new SATA :)

"4 X 1 TB SATA HD"

"replace HD's with 2 X 1 TB SATA in RAID-1 config"

Thank Chris.  

Sorry for the delay in responding to your comment.  After some thought, easiest approach is just to re-use existing drives.  If client renews Dell support then everything is of course covered so no need for new drives.  If not I'll need to monitor for disk warnings or failures.  I'll do a full backup of existing data just to be safe, then redo RAID configuration (currently I believe it's RAID-6 across all 4 drives) to have 1 pair of 1 TB SATA drives as RAID-1 for O/S & Paging file, and 2nd pair of 1 TB Drives as RAID-1 for data storage.  Only items required for upgrade are then Win 2012 Std and memory upgrade.  Thanks again for your input.