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Questions tagged [hardware]

Computer hardware is the collection of physical elements that comprise a computer system.

There are multiple, physical components that are required for a computer to function. This is collectively referred to as the "hardware". The most notable components inside of a computer system is the RAM, Hard Disk (or hard drive), CPU, and Power Supply.

Outside of the case, however, hardware exists as well. Some of these components include the keyboard, mouse, and monitor.

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Do you continue to use your end-of-life server/network equipment?

So you spend lots of money on nice servers, storage arrays, or network equipment and it works wonderfully for you for years. But after 3-6 years your vendor no longer offers maintenance for the device, but it is still working. Under what…
Zoredache
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How to prepare computers for donation

We are decommissioning around 40 Dell desktops. We would like to donate them but drives need to be wiped. What's the best approach to wipe them all as efficiently as possible? Is it standard practice to reinstall the OEM OS before donation or is…
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What is the difference between RDIMM vs UDIMM

I don't quite understand the differences between the two besides the obvious price differences. What does each offer over the other?
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How to make my HP server boot faster?

I have an HP ProLiant DL370 G6 server that I am using as a workstation. It takes 60 seconds during reboot and cold boot before screens post with a discrete Radeon HD6xxx GPU. What can I do to make it boot faster? I have had a chance to use HP…
GregC
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What RAM options do I need to know before buying Server RAM?

This is a proposed Canonical Question about Server Memory. I have to buy a Dell R420 server and there are various combinations (1600 and 1333 MHz RDIMMS and UDIMMS) and Performance Optimized vs. Advanced ECC with and without sparing. I noticed…
Stasik
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Replacing Hard Drives

I was wondering if it is a good idea to replace a hard drive in a (fairly) system-critical database server after a certain number of years of use, before it dies. For example, I was thinking of replacing a hard drive after 3 years of use. Since I…
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Extremely fast booting server

I'm changing the way that our DHCP/DNS stuff works at work. Currently we've got 3 DNS servers, and a DHCP box. All of them are VMs. There's a circular dependency where stuff booting requires NFS, which requires DNS. So when we reboot stuff,…
Tom O'Connor
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Should I be concerned about a high SMART Hardware_ECC_Recovered value?

I got such a message in /var/log/messages: Jun 25 06:29:27 server.ru smartd[4477]: Device: /dev/sda, SMART Usage Attribute: 195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered changed from 46 to 47 #smartctl -a /dev/sda: smartctl version 5.38 [i686-redhat-linux-gnu]…
lexsys
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How to correctly move a server inside a rack up and down

Maybe a bit stupid question, but Sometimes (rarely but it happens) I need to move a server in a rack 1-2U up or down. What do you think, which of the ways is the most correct and useful and why? remove a server from the rails, detach a rails,…
disserman
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Two-way high power outdoor Wi-Fi

Apologies if this is a schoolboy question but I've been asked by a client to look into installing Wi-Fi for their caravan park. More than happy with office Wi-Fi having done that for years but outdoor/high-power is rather outside my area of…
Rob Nicholson
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How can I destroy data on a failed hard disk without voiding warranty?

Suppose I have a hard disk with data I don't want to expose to a third party. The warranty period for that disk still lasts. Now the disk starts malfunctioning. I can't use a disk wiping program on a malfunctioning disk - it just wouldn't work. If I…
sharptooth
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Intro to Laptop Hard Drives

I've had my first notebook hard drive death (well, actually, it's currently dying... clicking noises, super slow windows boot up ...) Anyway, I now I realize I don't know anything about laptop hard drives. I was just going to take one out of…
carrier
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What kind of SATA connector is this?

My Supermicro motherboard has a "vertical S-SATA connector". The manual simply says "A vertical S-SATA connector, offers four S-SATA 3.0 connections (S-SATA 0-3)". I took a picture of it and it looks like it has 18 pins. I've had no luck finding…
Pete
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Can Running a Server's Redundant PSU on Different Circuits Damage It?

So I've been tasked to document and review the status of the UPSes for my current employer and identify any changes that need to be made. Generally easy stuff, however I came across a few units that are plugged into both regular power and a UPS…
Insomnia
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Understanding NVMe storage and hardware requirements

I'm a bit confused about the recent developments in PCIe-based storage, particularly as it relates to the NVMe specification and its hardware compatibility. While I've worked extensively with SSDs in disk form-factor and some higher-end PCIe devices…
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