Glossary
IT Hardware Trading Glossary
This is the vocabulary used when enterprise IT hardware is bought and sold by the lot rather than by the unit. Most of it is ordinary trade shorthand that nobody explains, which is a problem when a single word on a quote changes what you are agreeing to. A tested pull, an untested lot and a refurbished unit are three different histories. Nearline SAS is not a performance drive. A manifest is not a packing list. A 2Rx4 module and a 2Rx8 module of the same capacity are different products. The definitions below are grouped by theme rather than alphabetically, because the terms are learned in clusters and a term makes more sense next to the ones it works with. Where a definition reflects how GTR Supply trades rather than general industry usage, it says so.
Contents
66 terms, in 7 groups.
Grouped by theme rather than alphabetically, because these words are learned in clusters and a term makes more sense sitting next to the ones it works with.
Lots and packaging
How hardware is grouped, described and moved when it is traded in volume.
- Lot
- A quantity of hardware bought or sold as a single unit rather than item by item. A lot can be one pallet or the contents of a data hall. The defining feature is that it is priced and transacted as a whole, which is why breaking one up before it has been valued usually reduces what it is worth.
- Mixed lot
- A lot containing more than one model, capacity or specification. Most decommissions produce mixed lots, and they are normal rather than a problem. What makes one buyable is a manifest split by specification with a count against each line. A total unit count with no breakdown cannot be priced by anyone.
- By the lot
- Trading whole quantities rather than single units. It is how wholesale hardware pricing works, because the value comes from clearing a whole batch in one transaction rather than from picking out individual items. It is also why a small trial order often prices worse than the larger requirement behind it.
- Pallet
- The standard unit of bulk hardware movement, and often the practical minimum for a mixed lot. A pallet of drives, modules or small parts is treated as one consignment for pricing and freight. Palletized shipments are strapped, wrapped and usually insured, with tracking from collection to delivery.
- Manifest
- The line by line contents of a lot: what each item is, how it is specified, what condition it is in and how many there are. It is the document that lets a buyer price a lot accurately rather than pricing an average of things they cannot see. GTR Supply sends the manifest with the quote rather than after the sale.
- Packing list
- A description of how a shipment is packed: how many pallets, boxes or cartons, what is in each and what everything weighs. It exists so a shipment can be moved and received. It is not a manifest and cannot be used to check a delivery against a specification, because it does not carry one.
- Asset register
- A seller's internal record of equipment owned, usually keyed on asset tags and serial numbers with locations and cost centres. It often carries little or no specification detail. It is a perfectly good starting point for a valuation, and it should not be converted into a manifest before contacting a buyer.
- Cherry picking
- Removing the most valuable items from a lot before offering the rest. It is the most expensive habit on the sell side, because the parts taken out first are the ones carrying the value and the remainder rarely finds a buyer at anything like the same rate. A picked over lot is worth less than an intact one.
Condition and testing
What the words on a quote actually promise about the state of the hardware.
- Grade A
- In GTR Supply's grading of business laptops and desktops, Grade A is near new, with minimal cosmetic marking and no damage that draws the eye. It is a cosmetic description on a fully tested machine, so it says nothing on its own about battery health, drive hours or component condition.
- Grade B
- In the same grading, Grade B shows visible wear consistent with normal corporate use, such as scuffing on the lid or palm rest and light marking on the casing, but is fully functional. Both grades are fully tested. For most trade uses the discount on Grade B is larger than the cosmetic difference justifies.
- Grading is not standardised
- There is no body that defines Grade A or polices its use, and one supplier's Grade B is another supplier's Grade A. A grade quoted without a stated standard behind it tells you very little, which is why GTR Supply states the standard on every manifest and why comparing two quotes means comparing the definitions rather than the letters.
- Pull
- A part removed from a device rather than bought as a standalone item. Most used enterprise components are pulls: processors out of decommissioned nodes, memory out of servers, drives out of arrays. The word describes where the part came from and says nothing by itself about whether it was tested afterwards.
- Tested pulls
- GTR Supply's own definition, in the owner's words, is refurbished or pulled from devices. A tested pull has been removed from a machine and then tested rather than simply removed and shipped. It appears as a condition value on several product categories, and where a part has been pulled from a working node that is recorded against the lot.
- Untested
- Equipment supplied without test data. On the buying side GTR Supply accepts drive lots with no test data at all, because testing is work done here rather than something a seller needs to do first. On the selling side, untested stock is priced as unknown rather than as working, which is the honest treatment.
- Refurbished
- Equipment that has been through a restoration process rather than simply removed and checked. That can include cleaning, component replacement and reconfiguration. It is not a grade and it is not a guarantee of age or hours, so the useful follow up on any refurbished quote is what was actually done and what is recorded per unit.
- New sealed
- Stock still in unopened manufacturer packaging, never deployed. It commonly arrives from cancelled projects, over specified refreshes and channel returns. GTR Supply buys new sealed stock, used stock and customer returns, and they should be listed separately when selling because they are valued differently.
- Customer return
- Stock that was sold, returned and never redeployed. It may be unopened, opened but unused, or briefly installed. Condition varies more than in any other category, so a return lot is worth describing by what actually happened to it rather than under a single label.
- Burn in
- Running a complete system under sustained load before it ships, rather than powering it on briefly to confirm it starts. It exists because server failures are usually marginal components that only misbehave under prolonged thermal and electrical load with everything else running alongside them. A short power on test does not surface those.
Drives and storage
Interfaces, form factors and the health data that decides what a drive lot is worth.
- SAS
- Serial Attached SCSI, the enterprise drive interface. SAS drives are dual ported, so two controllers can reach the same drive, and they use the full SCSI command set with richer error reporting. The connector is a single continuous block with no gap. A SAS controller will accept SATA drives, but a SATA controller will never accept SAS drives.
- SATA
- The simpler, single ported drive interface used across both consumer and enterprise hardware. A SATA drive's connector has two separate sections with a visible gap between the data and power halves, which is the quickest way to tell one from a SAS drive without powering anything on.
- Nearline SAS
- A high capacity 7200 RPM drive built on a capacity oriented mechanism and fitted with a SAS interface. It is not a performance drive, despite the interface. It gives you dual porting and the SCSI command set on a capacity drive, which is what large arrays want. Expect 7.2K performance from it regardless of the link rate quoted.
- NVMe
- A storage protocol that runs over PCIe rather than through a storage controller. Because it is a protocol and not a connector, NVMe appears in several physically incompatible form factors, and a drive that fits a bay does not necessarily work in it. The bay has to be wired to PCIe lanes.
- U.2
- An NVMe drive in a 2.5 inch enclosure using a connector that fits a SAS or SATA bay. This is the most common compatibility trap in drive buying: the drive slides in and looks correct, but only works if that specific bay is wired for PCIe. On mixed backplanes some bays are and some are not, and nothing on the front panel indicates which.
- M.2
- A bare card drive format mounted directly on a board or a carrier. Both the length and the keying matter, because an M.2 slot can be wired for NVMe, for SATA, or for both. An M.2 SATA drive in an NVMe only slot does nothing at all, and the two look nearly identical.
- E1.S
- A newer flash form factor designed for dense server chassis, sometimes called a ruler because of its shape. It needs a chassis explicitly built for it and does not interchange with U.2 or M.2. It appears in recent high density storage and compute platforms.
- 512e
- A drive with 4096 byte physical sectors that presents them to the host as 512 byte logical sectors, emulating the older format so anything expecting 512 byte sectors keeps working. Most enterprise drives ship this way. It cannot be mixed with 4Kn drives inside one array on most controllers.
- 4Kn
- A drive that presents native 4096 byte sectors and requires support from the controller, the operating system and often the array firmware. The same model family frequently ships in both 4Kn and 512e, separated only by a part number suffix, so buying on capacity rather than part number is how arrays end up with mismatched members.
- SMART
- The self monitoring data a drive records about its own condition, readable with standard tooling in seconds. It is the only drive health information that comes from the drive itself rather than from whoever is selling it, which is why the raw fields are worth asking for in preference to a summary or a health percentage.
- Power on hours
- The time a drive has been running, recorded by the drive. In a data center that normally means continuously since it was racked. There is no universal threshold at which a drive should be rejected, and enterprise drives are specified for continuous operation. Hours are most useful read alongside the failure indicators rather than alone.
- Reallocated sectors
- The count of bad sectors a drive has found and remapped to spare capacity. A rising count means the drive is failing and covering its own tracks. Any non zero value deserves attention. A low hour drive that has begun reallocating is a worse proposition than a high hour drive with a clean count.
- Current pending sectors
- Sectors the drive has flagged as suspect but has not yet managed to remap. Unlike reallocated sectors, which describe damage already handled, pending sectors describe unresolved read problems happening now. They are the more urgent of the two figures when assessing a used drive lot.
- UDMA CRC errors
- Data errors detected on the cable or backplane rather than on the drive's platters. They usually point at a bad cable, a dirty connector or a marginal backplane slot, not at a dying drive. Widespread CRC errors across a lot are telling you something about the system the drives came out of, which is worth knowing.
- Percentage used
- The share of a solid state drive's rated write endurance already consumed, reported by the drive. It is the flash equivalent of power on hours, and it is the correct figure to ask for on used flash, because a drive wears by writes rather than by time. Low hours on an SSD mean very little on their own.
- Endurance class
- How much writing an enterprise SSD is built to take, normally described as read intensive, mixed use or write intensive in ascending order. It is designed into the drive through spare capacity and flash type and cannot be changed later. It is expressed in drive writes per day and total terabytes written on the manufacturer's datasheet for the exact part number.
- Caddy or sled
- The tray a drive is mounted in so it can slot into a chassis. Caddies are not universal between manufacturers or between generations of the same manufacturer, and trays for some platforms cost more than a used drive is worth. This is why GTR Supply asks sellers to leave drives in their caddies rather than stripping them out.
Memory
The fields on a module label that decide whether it will work in your board.
- ECC
- Error correcting memory, which detects and corrects certain memory errors rather than letting them corrupt data silently. It is standard on server platforms and absent on most desktop memory. ECC describes error correction only, and is a separate question from whether a module is registered, buffered or unbuffered.
- RDIMM
- A registered module, the standard server memory type. A register buffers the address and command lines, reducing the electrical load on the memory controller so a server can run several modules per channel. It cannot be mixed with LRDIMM in the same machine, and a board expecting RDIMM will not post with unbuffered modules installed.
- LRDIMM
- A load reduced module, which buffers the data lines as well as the address and command lines. Because the controller only sees the buffer, LRDIMM reaches higher total capacity per channel than RDIMM can. The trade offs are a small latency penalty and a higher price. It cannot be mixed with RDIMM in one machine.
- ECC UDIMM
- Unbuffered memory with error correction. It sits between server and desktop memory and suits certain workstation boards specifically. Because it is unbuffered it does not scale to the module counts a registered platform supports, and it is not interchangeable with RDIMM even where capacity and speed appear to match.
- SODIMM
- The small outline module format used in laptops, small form factor desktops and some appliances. Physically shorter than a standard DIMM and not interchangeable with one, whatever the capacity and speed on the label say. Available in both error correcting and non correcting versions depending on the platform, so the board decides which one you need.
- Rank
- A set of memory chips the controller addresses as a single block. Modules are single rank, dual rank or quad rank, shown on the label as 1R, 2R or 4R. Boards support a limited number of ranks per channel, so ranks behave like a budget spent as slots fill. A module correct in every other way can still be refused on rank alone.
- Organisation (x4, x8)
- The width in bits of each memory chip on a module, shown after the rank as x4 or x8. Because a rank is a fixed total width, x4 modules use more, narrower chips than x8 modules of the same capacity. On many platforms x4 organisation supports stronger error correction, which is why the full code such as 2Rx4 matters as much as the capacity.
Processors
How server silicon is packaged, identified and matched.
- Tray processor
- A processor supplied without retail packaging or a cooler, as it is shipped to system builders in bulk trays. Tray and boxed parts are usually electrically identical, and the difference is packaging and what the manufacturer's warranty covers. Most used and volume server silicon trades as tray.
- Boxed processor
- A processor in retail packaging, normally supplied with a cooler and a manufacturer warranty aimed at end users. Boxed parts appear less often in volume lots. When quoting, say which you need, because the price difference has nothing to do with the silicon.
- LGA
- A socket design where the pins sit in the motherboard socket and the processor presents flat contact pads. The risk when buying used LGA parts is damaged or contaminated pads on the chip, which is why physical inspection matters as much as electrical testing and why every unit should be inspected rather than sampled.
- PGA
- A socket design where the pins are on the processor itself. A single bent pin can stop a machine posting entirely, and it is not visible once a part is sitting in a tray with fifty others. GTR Supply refuses processors with bent pins rather than discounting them.
- Stepping
- A revision of a processor design. Parts with the same model number can exist in several steppings. It matters most in dual socket servers, where mixing steppings can produce instability that is hard to diagnose because the machine usually boots and runs normally before it misbehaves under load.
- Matched pair
- Two processors of the same model and stepping, drawn from the same batch, for a dual socket board. Pulling genuinely matched parts takes more effort than taking two of the same model number from separate lots, so it needs specifying at quote stage rather than being added afterwards.
- Spec number
- The manufacturer's specific part identifier printed on a processor, which resolves details a model name does not: low power variants, OEM specific versions that will not run outside their original platform, and stepping. Quoting from a spec number removes the ambiguity that makes processor pricing unreliable, since parts in one family can differ several times over in value.
Networking
Switching, optics and the rack hardware that ships alongside them.
- Transceiver
- The optical or copper module that plugs into a switch or adapter port to make a link. Sold in families such as SFP, SFP+, QSFP and QSFP28 according to speed and form factor. Reach, connector type and speed all have to match at both ends of a link. GTR Supply buys loose transceivers on their own as well as with switches.
- Vendor coding
- A small identifier stored in a transceiver's EEPROM that many switches check before bringing a port up. A module that is physically and optically correct can sit in a port and refuse to link because the switch does not recognise the coding. Some platforms log this as unsupported rather than as an error, which makes it slow to diagnose.
- DAC
- Direct attach copper, a fixed length cable with transceivers permanently attached at both ends. It is cheaper than optics over short distances and common for top of rack connections. Because the ends are fixed, coding and length both have to be right at purchase, and a DAC cannot be repurposed for a different reach.
- NIC
- A network interface card, the adapter that connects a server to the network. Speeds run from 1G to 100G and above. When buying used, the questions that matter are the port type and speed, whether the low profile or full height bracket is fitted, and whether the card is an OEM version tied to a particular server platform.
- Factory reset
- Returning a switch or router to default configuration so no previous owner settings, credentials or logs remain. It protects both parties: second hand network equipment can otherwise carry VLAN layouts, routing detail, access control lists and management credentials belonging to the organisation that decommissioned it. Every switch GTR Supply ships is reset before dispatch.
- PDU
- A power distribution unit, the strip that feeds power to equipment inside a rack. Available in basic, metered and switched forms. PDUs are routinely left off an equipment list and are worth including, because they are needed for any rack build and are commonly bought separately at a worse price.
- Rails
- The mounting hardware that lets a chassis slide into a rack. Rail kits are specific to a chassis family and generation, and kits for discontinued generations can be genuinely hard to buy. A server without rails cannot be installed until they are found, which is why rails should be left fitted rather than stripped out when a lot is being prepared.
The trade
Who does what in the second hand enterprise hardware market.
- ITAD
- IT asset disposition, the business of handling equipment at the end of its life in an organisation: collection, data handling, remarketing what has value and recycling what does not. ITADs are both sellers and customers in this market, and they typically hold material in categories that need a standing outlet rather than a one off buyer.
- Decommissioning
- Taking equipment out of service: disconnecting it, removing it from racks, labelling it and moving it to a loading area. It is separate work from buying the equipment, with its own owner. Projects most often slip because everyone assumes somebody else is doing the physical work, and it surfaces on the day a vehicle is booked.
- Broker
- A party that arranges a sale between a buyer and a seller without ever holding the goods. The distinction matters when something goes wrong, because the question of who is answerable for condition, testing and the data on the drives is answered differently depending on whether the party you dealt with ever had the equipment.
- Refurbisher
- A business that restores used equipment for resale: testing, cleaning, replacing components and reconfiguring machines. Refurbishers buy in volume and generally prefer intact lots, because the parts a lot has been stripped of are the parts their process depends on.
- Reseller
- A business that buys hardware to sell on rather than to deploy. Resellers work to a margin against a resale value they can predict, which is why they price a lot line by line from a manifest rather than accepting an average across it.
- System builder
- A business that assembles complete systems from components, either to a customer specification or as a standard product. System builders buy components in volume and care most about consistency, because a build repeated a hundred times needs a hundred identical sets of parts.
- Remarketing
- Putting used equipment back into the market rather than recycling it. It is the higher value route for anything still deployable, and it is the reason a lot is worth describing properly before disposal: equipment that could have been remarketed is regularly scrapped because nobody established what it was.
- Chain of custody
- The documented record of who held equipment at each stage between the seller's building and its final destination. It matters most where drives are involved, because a compliance team needs to show the data was accounted for throughout rather than only at the end.
- Certificate of destruction
- A document confirming that data on specific equipment was destroyed. GTR Supply securely wipes drives and provides a certificate of destruction on request. Certificates should be requested before a lot ships so they are produced against the correct serial range rather than reconstructed afterwards.
- Resale certificate
- A document a buyer provides showing that goods are bought for resale rather than for their own use, which affects how sales tax is applied on a United States transaction. It is a routine requirement in trade sales rather than a sign of anything unusual. GTR Supply holds a resale certificate.
Common questions
The words that cause the most trouble.
What does tested pulls mean?
A pull is a part removed from a device rather than bought as a standalone item, and a tested pull is one that has been removed and then tested. GTR Supply's own definition, in the owner's words, is refurbished or pulled from devices.
It appears as a condition value on several product categories, alongside new and refurbished, and it describes history rather than grade. A tested pull can be cosmetically rough and functionally perfect, which is common on components that lived inside a chassis where nobody ever saw them.
Where a part has been pulled from a working node, that is the strongest evidence available that it functions, and it is recorded against the lot.
The useful follow up on any quote using the term is what testing was actually done and what is recorded per unit. That answer is checkable against a manifest. The label on its own is not, whichever supplier is using it.
What is the difference between an ITAD, a refurbisher and a reseller?
They sit at different points in the same chain and want different things from a lot.
An ITAD handles equipment at the end of its life inside an organisation: collection, data handling, remarketing what has value and recycling what does not. Its customer is the company disposing of the hardware.
A refurbisher restores equipment for resale, testing, cleaning, replacing components and reconfiguring machines. It buys in volume and prefers intact lots, because the parts a lot has been stripped of are usually the parts its process depends on.
A reseller buys to sell on rather than to deploy, works to a margin against a resale value it can predict, and prices a lot line by line from a manifest rather than accepting an average.
GTR Supply buys from all three and sells to all three, which is why the same vocabulary appears on both sides of this site and means the same thing in each direction.
Why does the same word mean different things at different suppliers?
Because almost none of this vocabulary is governed by anybody, and the terms that carry the most commercial weight are the least defined.
Grading is the clearest case. There is no body that defines Grade A, no specification a supplier has to meet before using it, and no penalty for using it loosely, so one supplier's Grade B is another supplier's Grade A. Refurbished, tested and used are similarly elastic, and each describes a process rather than a measured outcome.
The terms that do mean the same thing everywhere are the technical ones: a 2Rx4 module, a 4Kn drive and a U.2 connector are the same everywhere because a standard defines them.
The practical rule is to lean on the technical vocabulary in a specification and to ask for a written definition of anything descriptive. A part number is checkable. A grade with no standard behind it is an opinion.
Read next
Condition Grades Explained: Grade A vs Grade B
What a condition grade covers, what it cannot cover, and why the same letter means two different things at two suppliers.
What Is a Hardware Lot Manifest?
The document that lets you price a mixed lot line by line instead of guessing at an average.
Drive Interfaces Explained for Bulk Buyers
Start at the backplane, not at the drive. What your controller accepts is the question that costs money.
All hardware guides
Condition grades, manifests, drive interfaces, server memory and how a valuation works.
Hardware we hold
Clearing it rather than buying
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