So what do underwear, hard drives, and networking gear (specifically, networking gear that operates above Layer 3) have in common?
They are three things I don’t buy used. Underwear is obvious. With hard drives, they’re the component in a PC that is almost guaranteed to fail before any other component involved in a server, desktop, or workstation, so getting them new means you’ve got a rough idea how long it’s going to last (I try to move off hard drives older than 4 years).
With networking gear, as I’ve said before, if it operates above Layer 3, I don’t buy it used unless it comes with a support contract from the original vendor. The reason is that with increasingly complex code associated with operating on Layers 4-7, you’ll need access to the original vendor’s code updates. No vendor I know of offers these code updates for free, so you’ll need a support contract.
So while a used Alteon might seem like a great deal on eBay, you’re completely on your own when it comes to software updates. If the units don’t include a recent version, that could mean trouble in terms of security, stability, or bug fixes (or all three).
With Value vendors marketing directly to the SMB (KEMP, Coyote Point, Barracuda), there’s little reason not to go the new route with an affordable yet feature rich load balancer.
