SMB Owners;

If finding capital for computer equipment rates second place to inventory and personnel?

Well take a look at the used server market!

The used server market is a hidden gold mine for any small business or non-profit that has a need for web, file or e-mail servers but can't find the money for that expensive shinny new Dell or HP's. Used servers by IBM, HP, Dell, Supermicro, etc are readily available from many eBay sellers. Of course the used server will be slower than newer servers but I am guessing not measurable by you the small business owner, only measurable by enterprise businesses who are trying to process thousands of connections or millions of transactions per hour.

Some may say the risk of using a server that in most cases no longer carries a manufacturers warranty is too great. Well let's do some math;

A new enterprise level server may cost $2000 plus an additional $550 for a three year warranty. If you get five years of service that's $2550 divided by five or $510 per year of service cost.

A used enterprise level server may cost $300. If you get two years of service that's $300 divided by two or $150 per year of service cost.

I expect both new and used servers will cause down time and  need repairs during the five and two year periods respectively.

Look for equipment that is older but not prehistoric like Pentium 4 and Xeon processor based systems verses Pentium 3 systems. Try to find servers with 1 gigabyte or greater memory so you can run larger applications. For redundancy look for servers with at least two hard drives, hot swap power supplies, hot swap fans and a RAID controller.

Saving money is almost as important to a small business owner as is making money, so take a good look at all the used servers available to you today.