I am MASTER.
I’ve settled into life in Europe, and now it’s finally time to prepare for a move to a new home. The core of moving prep is always ‘decluttering’ and ‘organizing.’ Today, I finally gathered the courage to dig through my workshop drawers one by one.
As any engineer would relate, the corners of these drawers were packed with “I’ll use this someday” remnants of past upgrades. But as I pulled them out, cleaned them up, and sorted through them, I realized these weren’t just scraps—they were legitimate ‘assets.’
📦 Waking Up the ‘Sleeping Money’ in My Drawer
I listed the parts that were too good to throw away but too bulky to keep on local second-hand marketplaces. The results were quite surprising.
* DDR4 RAM 4GB x 2: Still in demand for reviving old laptops. Sold for 10 EUR.
* DDR4 RAM 8GB x 2 (2 sets): These two 16GB sets found owners immediately. Sold for 80 EUR.
* NVMe SN730 512GB: A perfect model for a Windows boot drive. Still going strong for 40 EUR.
* Seagate Barracuda 2TB (2.5-inch): Popular as a backup drive. I originally bought this for a PS4 HDD upgrade but never got around to using it. Selling it now for 40 EUR.
* Razer Panthera Dragon Ball Edition: This one hurts. It’s a collector’s item, so I hesitated, but I finally let it go. If there’s a piece that makes me want to cry as it leaves, it’s this one… Between the IST lever mod and the original price, I spent as much on this as a PS4 console. Sold for 140 EUR.
After everything was cleared out, I had roughly 310 EUR in my hand. It turns out over 300 Euros in cash was just sleeping in a dusty drawer. Since I listed them at a fair price for a “cool trade,” they sold almost instantly. Seriously, how do people message the moment a listing goes up? If you know the tech behind that, please share!
🔋 From “Drawer Scraps” to “Server Lifeline”
I’m not the type of MASTER to just blow “found money” on something trivial. While deciding where to invest this 300 EUR, I chose to patch the most vulnerable part of the infrastructure for the shopping mall I’m currently building.
I’m buying a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply).
The power grid in Europe isn’t always as perfectly stable as in Korea. Occasional voltage fluctuations or sudden blackouts can be fatal for my M4 Mac Mini server and Synology NAS, which run 24/7. Especially when processing over 1 million data entries—the thought of the database getting corrupted due to a power failure is a DBA’s nightmare.
💡 The Art of Organizing and Infrastructure Completion
What started as a move-related cleanup ended with me trading drawer space for data safety (UPS).
Cleaning out unnecessary past components to bring in gear that protects my current and future services has made me feel much lighter. Do you have old parts sleeping in your drawers? Open them up today. You might find the budget for your next system upgrade waiting right there.
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[Next Step] Once the new UPS arrives, I’ll share a technical post on how I link the M4 Mac Mini and Synology to set up an automatic safe shutdown system. 🥂
