About half a year ago, the company my aunt works in was selling their 'old' desktop computers. I said 'old' in quotes because they are literally newer than my home server. I bought one for 200 HKD (divide by 8 for USD, so about 25 USD). It has a |Gen 8 Intel CPU, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD and a 1 TB HDD.| My server has a Gen 4 CPU. |GEN 4!| It's also a quarter of the size of my old server.
I finally squeezed some time to replace my old server with this new one last Sunday. It's quieter in my opinion. My dad says it's noisier. I think it makes slightly higher frequency noises so my dad heard them more than the old one.
So anyway, this sparks me to write on this topic.
Besides Apple fans, you and I may not be swapping hardware very quickly. A good computer can serve us for years before retiring. For instance, my old computer was a |pass-me-down from my dad|, which was a |pass-me-down from my uncle.| When I built my own PC in 2022, I repurposed it to be my homeserver.
Other than Apple fans, there's another entity who changes their hardware en masse: |corporations.| When upgrading hardware, it's likely for them to upgrade them all at once. To recycle some value from the old ones, they sell them at a low price, either to staffs or recyclers. |These computers are not low-end by any means.| Thanks to how bloated Microsoft Office is (/hj), these PCs can be pretty beefy at times. Most of them are worth the price, like my 200 HKD server. We actually bought a few of them as a family, so they can be repurposed as desktops for everyone. |You don't need to be rich to have a computer for each individual.|
What about the recyclers? In Hong Kong, there are shops that sell second-hand hardware. They are just hard to find. But if you know Hong Kong, there's a "tech cluster" in Sham Shui Po. |The Golden Arcade| is a "shopping mall" of computer stuff. Don't expect too much from the phrase "shopping mall". It's super cramped. However, there's another shopping mall called |The New Golden Arcade|, which ironically sells old stuff. This is the second-hand place I'm talking about.
(All of these prices are in HKD. Divide by 8 to get USD.)
I have not personally tried to put together a PC from these second-hand computers, but it looks rather possible to build |a decent gaming PC for about 4000 HKD| (GPU included). From the place where I took the photo above, I saw a computer with a GTX something selling for 2000 HKD. In contrast, my current PC with |brand new parts cost 12000 HKD| (the GPU already cost 4000 HKD).
If you have ever watched the video [PC Master Race Explained in 9 minutes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRY1jrIDhvU) by [CS Ghost Animation](https://www.youtube.com/@CSGhostAnimation), he called it the "Junkyard", and that's how you build PCs with a low cost.
I have a friend, who has a pretty big social network, bought a |second-hand tape machine| (LTO-5) from a company, and he wouldn't shut up about it. |Yes, magnetic tapes may be an old technology, but it's not bad by any means.| The storage density on the thing is INSANE. One tape can store all of my stream VODs I have ever recorded.
This is the concept I want to share. It's the fact that old things aren't necessarily bad things. |Do not get deterred simply because something is old.| It existed for a functionality, and when time have moved on for a while, it may serve a different purpose. This doesn't just apply to computer hardware, it also works on everything in life.
Waste production is one of the many crisis the world is facing. Officials only push recycling schemes for some specific types, but we can achieve a lot more using unofficial methods.
The word "trash" is subjective, same as "functionality". Something you consider useless, can be useful for someone else, be it wholly or partially. |By reusing hardware parts, not only are you paying a lower price, you're also helping the environment!| Isn't that wonderful?