Work/Home PC Help

[Rob W]

Not sure this is even possible, but here goes.

So I've got a work PC that pretty much needs coal shovelling into it, and is painful to use but just about gets the job done. I work in engineering so I'm often looking at dxf's and it just grinds to a halt doing anything taxing. My current home PC is an i5 4670, Z87 board, 32GB RAM and a GTX1080, and runs most recent games pretty well so would be ideal for me at work, as I've got 3 monitors, and I'd take in my 4K LG home one.

Is there a way for me to continue using my work HDD in my rig, and dual boot/switch drives on startup? I take it W10 will shit itself with having the same hardware registered twice? Or can I copy the work disk onto mine (main drive is a WD 1TB NAS disk) and carry on using it? I don't even really care about what's on my PC at the moment, I'll quite happily lose what's on the drive currently.

I have so many old quotes and stuff on that disk, and it's all hooked up to our potato network, I cant afford much downtime with it, and I really cant lose the info I have on there.

I'm OK with building PC's and stuff, but I've never really done anything like this. If there's an easier way to do what I'm after by all means point it out, any help would be much appreciated.
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'16 GSX-S1000F

[bugeye_bob]

Stick work hdd in home pc as a slave drive copy all files from works hdd that you need over to home hdd.
No dual booting required and you haven't lost any files.

[Rob W]

[Polarbear]

I was amazed how easy it was to clone the drive. Some chaps on here led me through it and I cloned my old spinny HD onto a SSD using Macrium Reflect.

I would have thought - clone your work drive onto an SSD and fit that into your home computer. That way your work machine is still operational.

Of course after saying that I am a computer numpty so I'd wait until the smart arses come along and tell you how to do it correctly.

Actually, just one point. When I was in the office and had a work computer there was all sorts of security shite on it that slowed it down no end. Heaven help you if you were caught trying to modify it or anything, sacking offence in Shell.
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Triumph Trophy Launch Edition

[stinkwheel]

I presume you already have the same software on both PCs?

Would they let you setup a VPN?

The best way I can think of would be to setup a VPN between your home and work PC so you can use your home PC while at work, effectively just using the work one as a monitor to see what you're doing. A bit like when people do remote assist over the phone to fix problems by taking over your screen.

Obviously, you'd only have the graphics display characteristics of the PC you're on at work but the graphics processing would be happening on the remote PC.

If you did that, you could set it to backup the files off your home PC to the work one every night in the wee small hours so you have local storage too if the connection goes down. Also gives you offsite backup.

The main barrier to this is most company systems admins would simply not allow it both from a point of network security and GDPR. Most of them would have a little cry in the corner about you wanting to take your HDD home, never mind tunneling into their system.

You'd need access to the router at each end to set a VPN up and install a fairly small piece of software on both PCs to manage the connection.

I don't know much about the specifics of exactly how to do this but I don't think it's THAT complicated. I use one at work all the time. Our main piece of database software is located at the main location and is running on a fancy PC in the network cabinet which NONE SHALL TOUCH. All the other PCs connect to it.

When I'm at a different location, the PC I'm using connects to the main network via a VPN. So you have the odd-feeling situation of having an old, slow, steam-powered PC startup on windows 7. You click the icon to connect to the network and a windows 10 screen comes up with the database and office software on it. All the actual computing is happening on the PC at the main location. I can make the label printer at the main desk print out stupid labels when I'm not on the premesis... which confuses the hell out of the receptionist and kills 5 minutes if you're bored.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[stinkwheel]

Of course the correct answer is to go to your boss and tell him your PC is slowing you down. You'd get better work done more quickly with a proper setup.

Quantify it. "I can do 8 hours work in 6 hours on my home PC. It's costing you a full days work per week just because I have a slow computer.". Quantify what you would need to do it efficiently. Then they can see how long it would take for the PC you should have to pay for itself and if they are any sort of a business person, will buy you a new one. You'll also get brownie points for saving them time and money and wanting to work efficiently... Or they might just be a dick, in which case, it's their money, plug away on their computer, get paid for doing less work.

Just like when I was painting storage tanks on a farm with a paintbrush as a holiday job at college and told the forman I could do it twice as quickly with a roller. Next day, he picked me up a roller on the way past the shop.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[P.]

Would be a faff, but it's more than doable. I wouldn't mix work and home machines though.

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[xX-Alex-Xx]

Convert it to a virtual machine and run it in VMware Player.

The tools and the player is free (for non commercial use )
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DILLIGAF

[Easy-X]

Question 1: what sort of place do you work at that you have to buy your own hardware?! Don't get me wrong: my works provide me a PC and all the trimmings but I'm still typing on my own keyboard I brought from home and there's absolutely no reason to have a G700s gaming mouse A whole PC though

Question 2: if you're lugging your PC from home to work what are you going to use at home?

Regarding dual booting, depending on the motherboard it can be a faff to get the boot menu up. You can tweak the Windows boot menu to show two OS options which is the cleanest way but you need some IT ninja skills to get that working smoothly. Windows has probably stored its key in the BIOS memory already so I don't think it'll care much about licencing - might need reactivating though.
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

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[Easy-X]

Mmm... my experience on this is hazy TBH, I mostly deal with VL and embedded stuff.
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

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[stinkwheel]

So glad I use linux.

I've had "the same" operating system on two different PCs and 3 different HDDs.

One HDD was on the way out so I cloned it and fitted the clone. The PSU went in the PC which was an old POS anyway so I put the HDD in a slightly faster PC chassis I'd salvaged from the scrap pile at work. I just finished cloning the drive againand fitting a new HDD because disc 2 was on its way out.

It generally has a slight tantrum when you frst start up then sorts itself out.

Mint Debian remix. Rolling release goodness. No upgrades, only updates.
My expenditure on PCs over the last 5 or 6 years has come to under £100.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[bugeye_bob]