Four complete builds on used enterprise hardware, each with every part priced live: chassis, drives, carriers, storage controller and memory. Every total is shown as two numbers — an exact live-parts sum and a chassis figure that is either a verified listing or a dated estimate band — because collapsing those into one would invent precision we do not have.
Prices updated
A complete TrueNAS build on a used R730xd: chassis, 12 caddies, an IT-mode HBA, CMR drives and ECC memory, each priced live, with the total split honestly.
A Proxmox virtualisation build on a used R740: chassis, carriers, storage controller, drives and ECC memory priced live, with storage layout options stated neutrally.
A media server build on a used DL380 Gen9: the cheapest route into twelve large-format bays, priced live, with honest notes on transcoding and noise.
The parts-list view of a large-memory R730 build for running big models: chassis, carriers, storage and a great deal of cheap ECC memory, each priced live.
The hard part of a used-server build is not choosing the server. It is that the server is maybe half of what you end up spending, and the other half arrives as a series of small surprises: the carriers that were not in the bays, the controller that turned out to be the wrong kind, the memory that had to be a specific rank and speed, the rails that were not included. Each is individually cheap and collectively large enough to change whether the project was a good idea.
These four pages exist to put the whole list in one place with a live price against every line. Each one starts from a specific intent — bulk storage under ZFS, virtual machines, a media library, a large-memory box — picks a platform that suits it and says why, and then prices the complete parts list from our catalogue.
They are starting points rather than prescriptions. If your requirements differ, the build calculator does the same arithmetic for any of our ten models, any documented backplane configuration and your own drive and memory choices.
This is the most important thing to understand about the numbers on these pages, and it is a deliberate refusal rather than a limitation we are apologising for.
Drives, carriers, controllers and memory are all things we price from live Amazon listings. Those figures are exact: they are the sum of items you can click through and buy at that price right now, and if a listing goes out of stock the table changes rather than quietly keeping a stale number.
Chassis are different. For eight of our ten models we hold verified Amazon listings and can price them live like anything else. For the other two we do not, because the used market for those machines runs through eBay and specialist refurbishers that we do not track — so we publish a dated estimate range instead, clearly labelled as an estimate and never blended into the live sum.
The temptation is obvious: take the midpoint of the band, add it to the parts figure, and print one satisfying number. We do not, because that number would be part measurement and part guess with no way for you to tell which parts are which. So each page shows the parts sum, the chassis figure with its own provenance, and a realistic total expressed as a range where the chassis is a range. It is less tidy and it is honest.
Processors. We do not track CPU prices and will not quote one. Used servers arrive with processors fitted, so the chassis figure is for a configured machine — check the listing for which chips are in it. Upgrading them later is a separate purchase we have no data to help you with.
Operating system installation. Each platform maintains its own documentation and it is better than anything we would write. We price hardware and link their docs.
Performance claims. You will not find a throughput figure, a stream count or a virtual-machine density number anywhere in this section. Those depend on your workload, your configuration and your expectations, and anybody quoting them for a model rather than a machine is guessing on your behalf.
Rails and cables. Rail kits are chassis-generation and rack-depth specific and we do not track them; the cable a controller needs depends on what your backplane presents. Both are called out on the pages where they matter, as questions to ask a seller rather than numbers we can supply.
A build guide is the middle of a chain. Before it comes the model decision, which our 10GbE networking is the usual last upgrade to any of these · ten buyer's guides and server comparisons cover, and the configuration decision — which backplane, which bay count — that determines what the machine can ever hold.
After it comes buying and receiving. Our where-to-buy guide covers the channels and how to read a configuration out of a listing title, and the verify-on-arrival checklist covers the first hour with the machine, which is when problems are still returnable. Two further pages deal with the things that most often disappoint first-time buyers: management licensing and fan noise.
8 in-stock listings · conventionally recorded, what every build here is filled with · ranked by live cost per tb, refreshed every few hours
| Drive | Capacity | Interface | Recording | Condition | $/TB | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HGST Ultrastar He10 10TB SAS 12G HUH721010AL5200 | 10TB | SAS-12G | CMR | REFURB | $23.50 | $235 | Buy |
| Toshiba MG07ACA14TE 14TB SATA Enterprise MG07ACA14TE | 14TB | SATA-6G | CMR | REFURB | $23.50 | $329 | Buy |
| MDD 14TB SATA 6G 7200RPM 256MB Enterprise MDD14TSATA25672E | 14TB | SATA-6G | CMR | REFURB | $23.57 | $330 | Buy |
| WD Ultrastar 12TB SATA HUH721212ALE604 HUH721212ALE604 | 12TB | SATA-6G | CMR | REFURB | $25.00 | $300 | Buy |
| MDD 10TB SAS 12G 7200RPM MDD10TSAS25672E | 10TB | SAS-12G | CMR | NEW | $25.00 | $250 | Buy |
| MDD 18TB SATA 6G 7200RPM NAS MD18TSATA25672NAS | 18TB | SATA-6G | CMR | REFURB | $25.00 | $450 | Buy |
| Seagate Enterprise Capacity 10TB SAS Helium ST10000NM0096 | 10TB | SAS-12G | CMR | REFURB | $25.06 | $251 | Buy |
| MDD 18TB SATA 7200RPM NAS MDD18TS25672NAS | 18TB | SATA-6G | CMR | REFURB | $25.56 | $460 | Buy |
Because only part of it is a live price. Drives, carriers, memory and controllers are listings you can click through and buy, so those sum exactly. The chassis is either a verified Amazon listing or a dated estimate of the used market, because most of these machines trade through eBay and specialist refurbishers that we do not price live. Adding an estimate band's midpoint to a live sum would produce one confident-looking number that is part fact and part guess, so we print both halves instead.
No. We do not track CPU prices, so quoting one would mean inventing a figure. In practice this matters less than it sounds: used servers overwhelmingly arrive with processors fitted, so the chassis price is for a configured machine. Read the listing to see which processors are in it, and price any upgrade separately.
Yes, and most people should. These four are starting points chosen because they cover the common intents, not prescriptions. The build calculator lets you pick any of our ten models, any documented backplane configuration, your own drive capacity and count, and a memory target, and it prices the result the same way these pages do.
No, and that is deliberate. Each parts list defaults to the cheapest live listing in each category, but we do not chase the absolute floor across every channel — we price what we can verify on Amazon, and eBay is frequently cheaper for chassis in particular. The value here is the completeness of the list and the honesty of the arithmetic rather than a claim to have found the lowest price in existence.
Every table refreshes from the same pipeline as the rest of the site, every few hours. The timestamp on each page is the last successful refresh rather than the moment you loaded the page, because a freshness date that updates on every reload tells you nothing about the data.