Thoughts on using a personal desktop as work machine?

[MatteRB26]

Hi, so it looks like there's a potential future of remote working for me, which I am 110% thumbs-up for. I work in software/web development and currently have a work laptop, relatively well specced. i7-7700HQ, 1tb NVMe, 32gb ram... but even then it can become quite the chugger when thrown a lot of resource-intensive load at it - ie: multiple IDEs with a mix of small and large projects, Unit testing, code analysis etc.

The performance difference between my laptop and PC in terms of processing power is highly noticable. My PC is sitting on a Ryzen 5 3600 (which is currently running 4.2ghz on all cores) which simply destroys the workloads without so much as a bead of sweat. The downfall is my PC's 16gb ram (which I'd upgrade). CPU comparison: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i7-7700HQ-vs-AMD-Ryzen-5-3600/2906vs3481

Right now I RDP onto the laptop which means I still get full use of the core setup - Desk, multi monitors, peripherals etc. without sacrificing "messing about" time to plug stuff in. I never touch the laptop except to turn it on 95% of the time now.

I'm thinking of going to work with a proposition of using my desktop as my main development machine. What I'm planning (should it be approved) is to buy a new SSD and dedicate it to work (or possibly give myself a personal upgrade and repurpose my current SSD for work) so whatever drive used will have its own Windows installation, it'll be used for nothing but work, it will be Bitlockered, it will have all necessary software (such as Sophos which is the AV we use at work), I'd link it to Azure AD and all of it. Work would have just as much control over the setup as they do now.

I just wondered what other people's thoughts are on it? Does anyone else do something similar? Or perhaps I'm just being a bit of a thorn in the side making a deal out of nothing? For me, when doing a side-by-side comparison of 100% performance boost upwards when looking at load times, compile times and everything else it seems like the obvious choice?

 

[MatteRB26]

I'm in almost an identical position to you, nice powerful gaming PC at home, but currently RDPing into a laptop in the office (granted it's an OK laptop - in fact has the same CPU as yours - but still no comparison to a desktop, even with a "budget" CPU like the 3600).

I wouldn't do this.

You're opening yourself up to issues, e.g. if the PC breaks, whose responsibility is it to repair it? Do you have a spare machine? If it takes 3 days to get the parts needed, what alternatives do you have in place? Do you get paid for those 3 days you can't work?

This is an easy one if it's your employer's laptop which breaks - a) they (should!) usually have stock of spares which can be swapped over in a couple of hours. b) if they don't, they aren't providing you with the tools needed to your job, if you can't work because of that then it's not your responsibility!

Another consideration - does your home insurance cover equipment owned by your employer? You might have to look into this.

What happens if your employer's IT department need to do some out-of-hours work e.g. software updates on all machines - are you happy to lose the use of your PC and allow them access during this time?

A far better solution (and what I'm actually considering) is - if you don't need the remote machine to be a laptop - put forward the case for them to provide a desktop/workstation for you to remote into instead. Other than the initial outlay for the company (which will be lower than the cost of a new laptop of equivalent spec), this will likely be a far better solution for everyone.

Thanks for the input! I hadn't even considered the home insurance side of it, though surely that's an issue right now with the laptop, as it's currently with me.

Should I have PC issues, I'd be keeping the work laptop relatively up to date with codebase and databases etc for those kinds of situations - and for in case I need to travel and work. I'm happy with the loss of use to work requirements as we have a small child so I rarely get to use my pc outside of late evenings .

I have a good relationship with my employer, I joined as the 4th team member and we're now at about 8. I'd get any issues would be solved "contractually" regarding any hardware/software problems, but I'm usually happy to put myself out when problems do occur - I'm not tech lead but do have relative input on the tech side of things. I even built our in-house build server (which actually got retired for Azure)

Not sure I'd sell the work desktop any easier than selling using my machine - work would rather spend more money on a laptop than a desktop, I've mentioned it a few times, but perhaps being remote instead of in the office (where we'd work inthe office and at home) it could be put forward again.

 

[MatteRB26]

Would never be allowed anywhere I’ve worked due to data security. Clients data needs to be kept in an environment they can completely control - their encryption, remote wiping etc.

My thought is to buy an entire isolated work drive that would be encrypted, Azure joined etc. There'd be the same amount of control over it as there currently is on the laptop. From where I stand the main concerns would really be hardware. As the laptop is company-owned everything is their responsibilty with it - whereas if I'm using my personal desktop with an isolated work drive - there becomes a grey area with responsibilities

 

[MatteRB26]

this is the main issue - you'll typically need the machine to be remotely managed by your IT department. Worth asking but i think you'll find they'll want more control that your happy to give them. VMs could be an option though?

Funnily enough we considered VMs before due to the constant mess of keeping developer's environments the same after a lot of "Who's changed this?" "Yeah you need to upgrade Node" "ffffff". Perhaps something to revisit

 

[MatteRB26]

I use my own PC at home for development work. However we are a tiny company and I pretty much have full reign over IT.

Alternatively could get a better work laptop if possible and use your screens you have at home.

This is the similar boat that I'm in. At the moment we're a small development company and while I'm not any sort of tech admin (I'm a Front-End Developer) I helped build up pretty much our whole infrastructure from Azure, to our in-house build server (Company bought components, I built it, set it up etc.).

If I worked for a larger company I wouldn't even be considering having a "work drive" in my main PC for many of the reasons people have already outlined above. Just to be clear as well - I wouldn't be mixing my personal Windows install with work - it'd be an entire drive dedicated to work development.