I don't keep hardware spares for my 300+ infrastructure as our hardware provider has 24 hour turnaround on warranty replacements.
As for re-purposing, I have tons of uses for older hardware to do background computation or other jobs. I suspect I can extend the lifetime to 5+ years on most of it, which is quite good in my opinion. You just need to design your system with modularity in mind, which you should be doing regardless of your hosting choices.
As for re-purposing, I have tons of uses for older hardware to do background computation or other jobs. I suspect I can extend the lifetime to 5+ years on most of it, which is quite good in my opinion. You just need to design your system with modularity in mind, which you should be doing regardless of your hosting choices.