// service
Decommission, Pack and Ship in NYC-area Data Centers
When a project ends, a lease is not renewed, or gear is being consolidated, someone has to physically retire the cabinet and get the hardware out of the building. RemoteHands.nyc sends an independent New York technician to do exactly that: power down, unrack, sanitize media, inventory, pack, and ship, without your team flying in to sit in a cold aisle for two days. You define the scope and the chain of custody you need, and we execute it on the floor with photos and a written manifest.
- Service
- Decommission, pack & ship
- Coverage
- NY / NJ / Ashburn, VA
- Billing
- Transparent hourly
- Dispatch
- 24/7
// what this is
Retiring a cabinet, done for you
Decommissioning is the reverse of a build. Where a rack and stack brings hardware into a cabinet, a decommission takes it back out cleanly and leaves the space ready to hand back to the facility.
You typically need this work when a contract wraps, a data center lease is ending, a migration is complete, or old hardware is being refreshed and the retired boxes have to move. It is time-sensitive work: colocation providers bill for occupied space until the cabinet is empty and the cross-connects are cancelled, so a slow teardown keeps costing money every day the gear sits idle. Having a local technician handle it means the space is released quickly and your equipment leaves the building safely, without a plane ticket for your own staff.
We treat two things as non-negotiable: your data and your paper trail. Every drive is handled to the sanitization standard you set, and every asset is logged and photographed before it is boxed, so there is a defensible record of what left the floor and in what condition.
// what is included
What a decommission covers
Scope is yours to set. A full retirement usually runs end to end through the tasks below, and we can also do just the pieces you need, such as media destruction only or pack-out of gear your own team has already unracked.
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Power down & unrack
Graceful shutdown on your signal, label and photograph in place, disconnect power, then pull each unit off its rails and out of the cabinet.
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Cabling & cross-connect teardown
Remove patch cords, power leads, and rack cabling, and coordinate cancellation of your cross-connects with the facility so billing stops.
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Media sanitization or destruction
Pull drives and wipe them to your specification, or physically destroy media on request. Serials are captured so nothing leaves undocumented.
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Asset inventory & photos
Serial, model, and asset-tag capture with per-unit photos, delivered as an itemized manifest you can reconcile against your own records.
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Pack & palletize
Anti-static wrap, original or supplied boxes, cushioning for the ride, and palletizing and shrink-wrap when a shipment is large enough to need it.
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Freight & shipping coordination
Stage at the loading dock, meet your carrier or arrange freight, hand off to your logistics chain, and pass back tracking so you can follow the gear.
// how it works
How a decommission runs
Four steps, agreed before anyone touches a cabinet.
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1. Scope and schedule
You send the asset list, the sanitization standard, the destination, and any access details. We confirm facility requirements, an ETA, and pricing before work starts.
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2. On-site teardown
We badge in, handle the escort process, and power down, unrack, and cable out the gear. If anything looks off from your list, we flag it before proceeding.
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3. Sanitize and document
Media is wiped or destroyed to your spec, and each asset is logged and photographed. You receive the manifest and images.
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4. Pack and ship out
Everything is packed, palletized, staged, and handed to freight or your carrier, with the cabinet left empty and ready to release.
// where we do this
Where we do this
We decommission across the New York and New Jersey metro and down in Ashburn, Virginia. These are common sites for pack-and-ship work, and if your cabinet is somewhere else in the region, see the full list of data centers we cover.
// related services
Related services
Decommissioning is one job in a wider set of on-site hands. Browse the full list of services, or start with the ones most often booked alongside a pack-and-ship.
// open a ticket
Need a decommission at your site?
Send us the asset list, the site, and the chain of custody you need. We answer 24/7 and confirm access, an ETA, and pricing before any work starts.
(707) 733-3342