What to do with old computers
5 years has passed and the top of the line business PC’s that you paid an arm & a leg for new are now dog slow and can’t reliably run the modern apps you need to get business done.
You purchase some new PC’s, contract a Competent IT Professional to migrate the data and apps from the old PC’s, and now comes the decision of what to do with the old hardware.
1st thing you want to consider is that even though you’ve migrated the data to a new system, the data is still on the old PC’s. Customer info, client lists, financial data or trade secrets should not unknowingly be let out of your control. If you have other people’s medical info you may fall under HIPAA regulations and can face extreme fines if that data is released without the patient’s permission to unknown parties.
All hard disk drives should be wiped using a utility like DBAN or BCWipe
In cases where the computer isn’t going to be re-purposed I would have the hard disk destroyed.
Removable media like Floppy disk drives or backup tapes should be wiped, de-gaussed if possible then shredded.
If you aren’t going to re-purpose the PC’s, many charities will take full systems, (computer, mouse, keyboard, monitor & OEM OS)
Some ideas for re-purposing old PC’s in your organization:
- Emergency spare
- Kiosk for lobby displaying company info, sign in sheets, or for filling out forms.
- Near continuous backup server for your data directory.
- Company wiki, intranet, instant messaging server.
A little thought and planning can get a few more years out of your investment and postpone it’s trip to the landfill.
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