I bought my Unraid license in 2018, with the exception of adding RAM, swapping out/adding GPUs, and swapping out failed HDDs my core hardware has remained unchanged. And that hardware was bought used. I bought these things used in probably 2016 ran it as a gaming machine and moved it into a server rack and it’s been running 24/7 since. Set it and forget it might be a big ask, everything needs TLC. But there is no reason why hardware can’t last, and throwing stuff out after 5 years seems wasteful.
The motherboard was released in 2014 - MSI X99a SLI Plus
CPU was released in 2014 - i7-5820k
RAM is mismatched, hobbled together from various systems I’ve upgraded.
This server was built was spare gaming components. I could absolutely put my 8600 GPU back in because the purpose of it was to run the monitor for the server. Unraid features an update that allowed me to share GPUs across containers so it freed up a PCI slot.
RAM was added from my desktop, not removed. Again, not because it was necessary, but because I have 8 slots so why not fill them right?
HDDs, yeah those were necessary. This has been built on a budget. Every drive was either a shucked external HDD or a refurbished drive that was all bought knowing it would die quickly being run nearly 24/7. Thankfully down most drives are spun down when not needed.
But it’s still running the original, used, PSU, motherboard, RAM (plus more used RAM), CPU, and even the original used AIO to cool it. Hell even the fans are all original (and used). You can split hairs if you’d like, but 5 years is laughable.
