Repurposed Computers
The Repurposed Computer Project
A great way to update research laboratory computers not on a regular replacement schedule!
A percentage of computers retrieved as part of the Computer Replacement Project are made available to departments as part of the Repurposed Computer Project. Researchers have first choice of purchasing additional computers from among the best machines undergoing replacement at four years of service. The repurposed computers are re-imaged with Windows 10 Education and have two years of full support for a one-time fee of $125. This is an excellent opportunity for researchers to replace aging laboratory computers with newer Windows 10 machines at reasonable cost.
As of August 28, 2018, we are no longer able to build WIN7 systems per ITC.
Click Repurposed Computer Project for detailed information.
For help obtaining a repurposed computer for research, please contact Janet Keener at 94142 or the ITS HelpDesk at 94648.
Research Data at Risk on Aging Computers
Extended support for Windows 7 Enterprise by Microsoft is scheduled to end on January 14, 2020. In many instances, it will be possible to upgrade Windows 7 machines to Windows 10. If you are interested in an in-place upgrade and are concerned about older software that may not work with Windows 10, we can evaluate your application with Microsoft's Application Compatibility Toolkit. The ACT will enable most older applications to successfully run in Windows 10.
As computers age, the potential for hardware failure increases, particularly after 3 years, and data loss becomes an increasingly risky proposition. BackBlaze reports an early annual hard drive failure rate of 5.1% across the first 18 months of use of all major hard drive brands, then a standing 1.4% (constant) annual hard drive failure rate, followed by an 11.8% annual failure rate in drives older than 3 years. So, we strongly recommend that research data be backed up daily to the ETSU network or to your ETSU OneDrive for Business account. If you are still running WIN7 Enterprise on computers in your research laboratory but are interested in upgrading to Windows 10 Education, please contact us. It is most likely that we can upgrade your operating system with no loss of data, or we can help with purchase and installation of a re-purposed or new computer.