Ever since the credit crunch in 2008 companies and organisations have been looking at ways to save money. One of the areas which has been hit is the updating of computer and storage systems, making them last for many years, rather than the usual annual or biennial upgrade cycle.
This coincided with the introduction of processors and memory architecture which is capable of running the latest operating systems, such as Windows 10, albeit slower than the latest hardware, but comfortably enough that a user will not complain. It should be noted that the performance differential between Windows 10 and Windows 7 a favourite among many consumers and users is not big as long as the memory installed is at least 8GB.
The use of SSD drives for installing the operating system has also helped, by significantly reducing the boot time of the operating system. This has enabled many consumers and companies to get away with a minimal upgrade policy, such as installing an SSD, rather than invest in newer hardware.
Although a computer approximately 8 years old may be capable of running Windows 10, it will not only be a lot slowly than a more modern system, but also more likely to suffer a failure through wear and tear. Not only does this risk a potential loss of data through a failure, but also affect productivity.
The continued use of old hard disk drives and SSD devices to the point of failure is a growing risk. The health of the storage devices being used should be checked regularly and the use of a backup strategy will ensure that the threat of data is minimised.
