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I'm looking to sell a used Dell Poweredge T310 server (Specs at the end) with Server 2008 Standard SP2 and MS SQL Server 2008 R2 on it. I'd like to sell the server as-is, with the OS and installed programs. I've scrubbed many Windows XP through 10 PCs for sale but never a server.

-The merits of selling this server used in the first place could be discussed (I'm seeing this server configuration sell for up to about $250- $300 [ended auctions])

-The merits of selling it with the OS and SQL instead of wiping the disks clean with a utility could be discussed.

Assuming I sell it as-is, once the data is deleted, I will use a program to overwrite the free space to make reasonably certain no data recovery can take place.

-What data and configurations should I remove in order to scrub off any data or reference to the previous owner?

I already deleted all unneeded:

-Users

-User Folders

-Company Shared Folders

backed up, then deleted all

  • SQL databases

The server name has a reference to the company name so I think I'd like to change that.

What else is there?

Thanks

================ Specs:

PERC H700ADPT, 512M, SERIAL ATTACHED SCSI HARD DRIVE, 250GB 7.2K RPM SATA 3.5" Hot Plug Hard Drive -RAID 5 POWER SUPPLY, 375W, NON-RDNT, LITEON3 16GB Memory (4x4GB), 1333MHz, Dual Ranked UDIMM X3470 Xeon Processor, 2.93 GHz 8M Cache, Turbo, HT 16X DVD-ROM,SATA, INTERNAL INFORMATION, LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY, FIO 2 Gb NICs Serial por tVGA port 4 USB rear ports 2 front USB ports

2 Answers 2

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Personally, I wouldn't sell the server with the hard drives included, let alone with the OS and SQL Server installed on them. I also wouldn't use the hard drives in a server I bought from a third party seller if they were included by the seller. I'd ditch them and buy my own drives.

Why are you selling the server with the OS and SQL Server installed?

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  • good points - the only thought was it's essentially setup and ready to go if someone needed that configuration or was going to upgrade it. That's probably not a likely scenario. Server 2008 is essentially Vista, which no-one uses but my thinking was that someone in server/corp world might need it.
    – RickNCN
    Jul 31, 2019 at 13:11
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It has your license info (Windows and SQL server) and who knows what else on there as well.

I would scrub it clean with DBAN or similar so you know it is all deleted. If you feel nice, you could reinstall OS, etc. You may not be able to transfer the windows license, etc. (not sure, I'm a Free Software guy for a reason).

Additionally, if I were to buy it (or most folks I know) they'd end up scrubbing it anyway and reinstalling OS, etc. so I don't think you'd be saving anyone anything by providing it with OS and such installed.

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  • Info I came across says Open, Select, and Enterprise Agreement Licences are transferable but there are procedures and forms. MS licensing is a black art that I don't want to get involved with so looks like I'll scrub the data off and offering the hdds. I can understand why no commercial entity would want to risk enterprise data and security using unknown drives. It's funny that we do it all the time in the private sector with personal PCs. Seems like it would be a successful vector for getting malware-controlled PCs into the hands of users but I digress. I may just keep it and make it a NAS.
    – RickNCN
    Jul 31, 2019 at 13:32
  • can you recommend a good Linux distro to make it a NAS, similar to a Qnap NAS?
    – RickNCN
    Jul 31, 2019 at 13:34

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