Get answers to common questions about purchasing new and pre-owned data center hardware.
When it’s time to update your data center hardware, there are a lot of decisions to make. Should you purchase new or pre-owned equipment? What supplier should you work with? How will you support your equipment once it’s installed?
At Curvature, a Park Place Technologies Company, we’ve helped organizations of all sizes navigate these decisions. This Q&A covers the most common questions to consider before your next hardware purchase.
Choosing the Right Hardware
Should I purchase new or pre-owned data center equipment?
Start by understanding the level of support you’ll need, and whether your top priority is flexibility or cost savings. Orignal Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) typically include a 1–3-year warranty with new equipment purchases, though service levels may vary across manufacturers.
For networking, core licenses, and storage, new hardware is often the better investment — it gives you the OEM warranty and access to software and firmware updates. Many data center networking platforms also require an active support contract to access software updates and add-on licenses (such as Layer 3 features), so buying new helps keep those entitlements intact. For servers, your decision will largely come down to budget and how quickly you need the equipment operational.
Sometimes, organizations are required to purchase new hardware to meet performance, compliance, capacity, or power requirements. If you don’t need the latest technology or are looking to maximize your budget, pre-owned hardware may be the right fit — without sacrificing reliability or performance. There’s also a middle path: OEM-certified renewed hardware (such as HPE Renew) is reconditioned to original factory specifications and remains eligible for OEM support, licenses, and subscriptions — giving you the benefits of new at pricing closer to pre-owned.
How much can I expect to save by purchasing pre-owned equipment?
Customers typically save 50-95% compared to new OEM pricing. These savings reflect depreciation driven by rapid technology cycles — not a decline in equipment quality or performance. Pre-owned hardware from Curvature is fully tested and held to the same standards as new equipment.
What are the differences between buying from an OEM, VAR, or third-party hardware provider?
When purchasing data center hardware, you have three main options, depending on what works best for your business.
- An OEM typically sells directly or through authorized channels, often including manufacturer support for a predetermined period.
- A Value Added Reseller (VAR) typically provides OEM hardware products that are bundled with additional services.
- A third-party hardware supplier provides hardware independently from an OEM and often offers new and pre-owned solutions with pricing flexibility and customized support options. Some third-party suppliers, such as Curvature, partner directly with OEMs, giving customers a single source for hardware needs with the flexibility to mix products, manufacturers, and conditions.
Support, Coverage, and Flexibility
What’s the difference between “support” and “warranty?”
Support is a contracted SLA with a defined response time and a higher level of service, including onsite engineer dispatch when needed.
Warranty is not a guaranteed SLA — it typically covers parts replacement during regular business hours.
All Curvature hardware comes with a limited lifetime warranty, with ongoing support available through Park Place Technologies’ third-party maintenance services.
What’s included with my hardware purchase from Curvature?
All Curvature pre-owned hardware is fully tested and configured before it ships. We offer flexible SLA-based support options through Park Place Technologies, ranging from Next Business Day to 24x7x365 coverage.
New hardware purchased through Curvature includes the applicable OEM support terms. Our team can help you evaluate the right support coverage based on your environment and criticality requirements.
What are my financing and rental options?
Curvature offers flexible financing and rental options to help organizations shift hardware costs from CapEx to OpEx. Whether you’re looking to finance a large deployment or rent equipment to bridge a transition period, our team can help structure the right arrangement for your budget and timeline.
Quality, Security, and Trust
Where does Curvature get its data center hardware?
Curvature sources hardware through three primary channels:
- A global network of trusted vendor partners, rigorously vetted and evaluated on an ongoing basis
- Access to OEM supply chains, including inventory from the same warehouses as new equipment
- An IT Hardware Buyback program that acquires equipment directly from organizations refreshing or decommissioning infrastructure
This gives Curvature one of the largest and most diverse pre-owned hardware inventories available, with global availability across network, server, and storage equipment. All hardware goes through our multi-point inspection and testing process before entering inventory.
How do you ensure there are no security risks with pre-owned equipment?
Ensure your hardware supplier adheres to strict data destruction protocols and is backed by proper certifications. At Curvature, every piece of pre-owned equipment undergoes data erasure or physical destruction of data-bearing components before it enters our inventory. We comply with and often exceed industry security standards to ensure all hardware is fully wiped, reset, and in perfect working order before shipping. Our practices are backed by ISO 27001 certification for information security management and R2v3 certification for responsible data sanitization and electronics handling.
What steps does Curvature take for quality assurance?
Quality assurance is built into every step of our process. All incoming equipment goes through an end-to-end physical inspection and authenticity verification, down to the board level. Any equipment that fails is immediately rejected and never offered to customers.
Our testing process includes four layers:
- Spirent network simulation for full-load testing, latency, and packet-loss analysis
- TechWorkSpace (TWS), our proprietary application for in-depth diagnostics, firmware verification, and multi-vendor compatibility testing
- Curvature Testing Environment (CTE), an in-house enterprise-grade diagnostic tool that stress tests every CPU and memory component
- OEM diagnostic tools aligned to each device’s original manufacturer
Every piece of hardware is fully documented with lifetime hours, voltage levels, network throughput, and temperature levels — all traceable by serial number. Our ISO 9001:2015 certification and 40 years of quality management experience back everything we ship.
Delivery and What to Expect
What kind of lead time should I expect?
Curvature has access to over $100 million in global inventory that is tested and ready to ship within days. With distribution centers in the United States, the Netherlands, and Singapore, we can stage inventory in every major time zone and reach virtually every major city with next-business-day delivery. In most cases, Curvature can deliver in days, not weeks or months.
For larger or more complex deployments, timelines will vary based on scope and configuration requirements — our team will work with you to set realistic expectations from the start.
What does the process look like when working with Curvature?
It starts with a conversation. Our team will work to understand your environment, goals, and timeline — and bring in technical resources as needed. Because Curvature is vendor-agnostic and carries new and pre-owned inventory, we take a consultative approach to find the right solution for your specific needs. For security and some appliances, new hardware is often the better investment, and we’ll tell you that.
We focus on building long-term relationships, not one-time transactions. We won’t pressure you on timelines or budget. If we’re not the right fit for a particular need, we’ll tell you.
Ready to find the right hardware for your environment?
Whether you’re upgrading, replacing, or expanding your environment, Curvature’s team is here to help — no pressure, no one-size-fits-all answers. Tell us about your environment and we’ll help you find the right fit.
