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What's the oldest piece of kit in your IT department?
'If it ain't broke fix it until it is', say silicon.com readers and IT chiefs

By Andy McCue

Published: Thursday 16 November 2006

'Antique' pieces of tech hardware are still going strong in many IT departments, with almost a third of respondents to a silicon.com poll admitting to having kit that is more than 10 years old.

Taking the phrase 'sweating the assets' to an extreme, the poll of more than 500 silicon.com readers found that 33 per cent have IT equipment between five and 10 years old still in operation, and 32 per cent have fully functioning kit more than 10 years old.

Only two per cent claimed to be so leading-edge that all their IT equipment is less than two years old.

Do you have any 'antique' kit in your IT department?

Then post a Reader Comment below telling us what it is and what it does - or even better why not take a photo of it and email it to us. We'll publish the best ones.

UK IT chiefs backed the view that there can still be a place in a modern IT organisation for these odd pieces of 'antique' hardware if they are doing a job.

Ian Auger, head of IT and communications at ITN, said as long as the kit has the functionality and can be supported, why waste money on replacing it?

"We still have modems that are around 15 years old bringing in low-speed data feeds. Many of the I/O cards in our switchboard are of a similar vintage - we have just replaced the processor units to gain more functionality from the same hardware," he said.

Phil Young, head of IT and operations at Amtrak Express Parcels, said his department still has an old bank of modems used for dial-up from remote locations as a back up if newer methods fail - and joked that the clockwork mechanism just needs cleaning every now and again.

"They are about 15 years old and still hum along without any major problems," he said.

Old IT equipment can also be valuable as a test environment. Paul Broome, IT director at 192.com, said: "Old servers can be great test harnesses for development, beta and staging. Our motto here is 'if it ain't broke fix it until it is'."

That sentiment is backed by Andy Pepper, director of business IS at Tetley, who said: "The age of kit is largely irrelevant if it still does the job efficiently, remains compatible and is fully supportable. Usually it's the latter two issues which make us upgrade."

Think you can do better? Then post a Reader Comment below telling us what the oldest piece of functioning hardware in your IT department is and what it does - or even better why not take a photo of it and email it to us. We'll publish the best ones.