An old work computer can serve as a Wi‑Fi hot spot, extra storage, or even a backup machine in case your main one suddenly decides it’s time to stop working.
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It’s nice to have a dedicated work computer apart from your personal setup, optimized for your various daily tasks and jobs. Just like your personal devices, work computers eventually become obsolete; even the most reliable, long-lasting computers may need to be replaced with newer, faster models. Even if you need to replace it for its primary purpose, that doesn’t mean you need to get rid of it. An old work computer can be repurposed for various handy functions, like external storage, video calls, Wi-Fi hot spots, and more.
To reduce electronic waste, it’s best to recycle your outdated electronics instead of just chucking them in the trash. When we say «recycling», we mean both the traditional definition of bringing it to an electronics recycling center and reconfiguring and optimizing it for a new purpose. That old work desktop or laptop can be put toward all kinds of productive uses, taking a little pressure off your main system in the process.Use it as external storage
You can never have enough physical data storage, like flash drives and external hard drives. Cloud backups are helpful and all, but having a physical drive handy to store sensitive documents and quickly retrieve files is vital for anyone working with a computer. If you have an old computer that’s a bit slow but still holds data with no errors, you can use it as dedicated physical storage.
The tricky part of this prospect is that you can’t just plug a two-ended USB cord into both computers and move files around like you would with an actual external hard drive. However, you can take a couple of avenues to achieve a similar degree of functionality. For example, you could get a dedicated data transfer cable on Amazon, like a Plugable USB 3.0 Transfer Cable. These cables come with software that can be installed on both PCs to facilitate easy data transfer and sync. Alternatively, you could plug the old computer into your router via an Ethernet cable, then set up a network share folder for your current computer to access. This would allow you to send files over your home network from one PC to another, though your file transfer speed would depend on your network speed.
