Revive older, more powerful equipment, or buy new, cheap equipment?

During a design session for a new server room, our company made a very strange set of choices for equipment. One was pricing out three brand new 48-port gigabit Juniper switches, one for each rack. They are access switches, with an optional 10Gb module (that we aren’t buying).

The countering solution is reviving two HP 5900AF Comware switches that are sitting on a shelf. They are a bit older, but are fully 10- and 40-gig, which all of our servers have. The trouble is that we would have to buy RJ-45 modules, which technically costs a less than the new switches, but would require either longer runs to a Com rack, or buying a third 5900 (not cheap) for the third rack.

All three racks will be 75% to 100% full at all times, with mostly RJ-45 1/10Gb. Some other devices will be using Q/SFP+, but not many.

I want to know if there’s possibly a better option that I’m not seeing. The biggest problem is the budget (shoestring), which we’re shoehorning onto the construction (also shoestring).

Oh, and we can’t buy refurbished or used equipment because reasons. So, yeah. That.