Renewing your IT estate: when to replace and how to dispose

The invoice for a new machine is visible. The cost of the old one is diluted in slow start-ups, freezes and batteries that cannot last a meeting. Let us do the maths with clear assumptions, which you can adjust to your situation:

• Hourly cost €25 total cost per employee.
• Daily delay 15 minutes lost on a five-year-old machine.
• Working year 220 working days.

Result: 0.25 h × €25 × 220 = €1,375 a year. Across 10 workstations in the same situation, the company pays every year the value of several computers it never receives. For light roles or rarely used machines, keeping them can still pay off. The aim is to retire what no longer pays for itself. We develop this calculation in the article on the hidden price of a slow PC.

There is no legal deadline. The figures below come from DataRoad's 11 years of experience planning IT estates and are for budgeting, not obligation.

"End of support" is the day the manufacturer stops fixing vulnerabilities. The device still switches on, but any flaw discovered afterwards stays open forever. On a laptop that is a risk; on a firewall, which guards the network's front door, it is unacceptable.

1. No security patches: Windows 10 lost support on 14/10/2025. Machines unable to run Windows 11 were left exposed; the alternatives are in the guide on the end of Windows 10.
2. Critical item out of warranty: if the server or firewall fails, restoring it depends on finding parts.
3. Repeated support calls: the same device several times in a quarter is money leaving unseen.
4. It no longer serves the business: applications that will not start, Wi-Fi that cannot keep up, monitors that will not connect.

Waiting for a breakdown guarantees the worst case: a person at a standstill, a rushed purchase and the price of the day. Planned, the process becomes predictable:

• Asset register with dates Purchase, warranty end and support end recorded per device. If you do not have one, start with the checklist for auditing your IT estate.
• Warranty to the end of planned use On servers and laptops it avoids surprises in the final year of service.
• A quarter of the estate per year, at most Renewing 20% to 25% annually, on a four- to five-year cycle, smooths the budget.
• Infrastructure in its own window Firewalls, switches and access points replaced out of hours, as a project.

To turn this plan into figures, see the guide to budgeting for IT in 2027.

It carries years of email, proposals and client information. Before disposal:

• Erase the data properly Deleting or formatting is not enough. NIST SP 800-88 (Rev. 2, published in September 2025) is the international standard for making recovery impracticable. On an encrypted disk, destroying the encryption key is an accepted method.
• Leave a trail Serial number, technique used, date and person responsible for each disposal.
• Hand it to someone authorised to process it Decree-Law 152-D/2017, as the Agência Portuguesa do Ambiente (Portuguese Environment Agency) explains, requires companies to send WEEE to a licensed management entity or treatment operator, never to household collection points. The e-GAR waste transport form is the proof.

In 2022, DataRoad won a public contract from the União de Freguesias de Massamá e Monte Abraão to install and configure a new business server. The work combined UPS, local and cloud backup, consultancy and the move of the old systems and data to the new infrastructure.

That is renewal done properly: the core replaced with planning, power and backups updated in the same step, without waiting for something to break. See the project in detail.

Under IT Unlimited, the asset register, warnings of expiring warranty and support, and the replacement plan are included in estate management.

• Regulatory Decree 25/2009, depreciation: Portal das Finanças
• Windows 10, support dates: Microsoft Learn
• NIST 800-88 guide, Rev. 2: csrc.nist.gov
• WEEE FAQ: Agência Portuguesa do Ambiente

We inventory every device, flag what is already out of warranty or support and deliver a phased plan, ranked by priority and with estimated cost. No-commitment proposal.

More than 10 workstations · support contract · remote, on-site and telephone support. Call +351 211 459 950 * or write to sales@dataroad.pt.

*Call to a Portuguese landline.

Related: on-site support for SMEs · managed Microsoft 365.