Secondhand Power 520s from IBM Global Financing Pretty Pricey

January 24, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

With IBM saying that it is sold out of older Power 520 machines as well as the new Power7-based Power 720 and 740 entry boxes, if you are trying to upgrade from a vintage OS/400 machine to a more modern release, your other option is to get a refurbished computer from IBM Global Financing or some other used equipment reseller.

IBM is not showing off a huge inventory of machines right now in its Global Financing subsidiary, but as you can see on its refurbished AS/400, iSeries, System i equipment site, it does have two configurations available.

The first is a Power 520 with a single 1.9 GHz Power5 processor, 1 GB of main memory, four 70.6 GB 15K RPM disks, and i5/OS V5R4M5 all for $5,919. This machine was launched in 2006 and is rated at 30 CPWs running 5250 green-screen workloads and 600 CPWs on generic server-style software. That machine comes with 40 MB of disk cache, a 30 GB quarter-inch tape drive, and some other features.

The second configuration is a Power 520 with two 1.9 GHz Power5 cores (with only one activated), plus a PCI-X expansion tower (feature 0595) with 16 70.6 GB disks. This Power 520 has a slew of peripherals in it, 4 GB of main memory, and has a license on that one core for V5R4M5. Global Financing thinks this machine is worth $49,225.

It is hard to say what Power 520 machines are really worth, but I will be casing the used equipment dealers in the coming weeks to try to get a sense of what the street says they cost. There may not have been an organized market in machines ahead of the entry Power 720 and 740 launch last August, but with those machines out and shortages on top of that, a true market may be forming.