Making the switch from the office to working from home has become the new normal, but some users might feel like their setup is not as well-appointed or productive as at the office. It’s time to change that. With the proper equipment and gear, you can turn your boring-old home setup into a workstation powerhouse — ensuring you’ll never need to return to the office again. At PCWorld, we’ve had to adjust to remote work just like the rest of the world. Our staff has spent countless hours testing and reviewing hardware, which means we’ve been lucky enough to find the best gear and accessories available. Below you’ll find our favorite work-from-home essentials. Look sharp during Zoom meetings: Logitech C920e Business Webcam Logitech Working from home means you’ll have video meetings. Lots of them. And those low-quality webcams that ship with most laptops won’t show your brightest side. So opt for a new webcam with high-quality resolution such as the Logitech C920e Business Webcam. It captures 1080p HD resolutions, a 78-degree field of view, and comes with great perks such as autofocus and light correction. Get the Logitech C920e Business Webcam for $69.00 at Amazon Bring stability and comfort with a laptop stand: Lamicall Adjustable Laptop Stand Lamicall A good laptop stand will do wonders for your comfort and health. Not only can a stand keep you in a good ergonomic position, but it will keep your laptop safe and secure on your desk. Plus, a stand makes using a mouse and keyboard with your laptop a lot easier. You don’t need to drop a ton of money on anything expensive, either. A solid lightweight aluminum stand such as the well-liked Lamicall Adjustable Laptop stand will do just fine. It’ll support almost any laptop, from 10 inches up to 17.3 inches. It allows you to adjust both tilt and height and comes with ventilation holes to help dissipate heat from your laptop. Get the Lamicall Adjustable Laptop Stand for $35.99 at Amazon Store your important files for easy on-the-go access: Crucial X9 Pro SSD IDG Sure you might work at home, but you might need something to transport your work files for those occasional trips into the office or just a quick and convenient way to take your data on the go. External drives are a great way to store and back up your files, and their ever-decreasing size means you can now conveniently transport mass amounts of storage anywhere you go. The Crucial X9 Pro SSD is small enough to fit in your pocket, but capable enough to be your main external drive. It’s also one of the most affordable SSDs on the market and comes with up to 4TB of storage capacity. Plus, the 10Gbps transfer speeds are lightning fast for an external drive. It also comes with USB-C connectivity and includes a Type-C-to-Type-A adapter cable so you’ll have no issue connecting it to whichever computer you’re connecting to. Get the Crucial X9 Pro 1TB USB SSD for $84.99 on amazon Block out background noise to help you focus: Wyze Noise-Cancelling Headphones Wyze Labs While products from the likes of Bose and Sony are great, they are also incredibly expensive. Enter Wyze Labs. The company has created a good pair of over-ear noise-cancelling headphones for a surprisingly affordable price. While the audio quality might not be able to compete with the more expensive brands, the noise-cancelling is still top-notch. If you’re looking to block out background noise at your home office or while working in a busy café, these headphones will do the trick just fine. Get the Wyze Noise-Cancelling Headphones for $53.99 at Amazon Get every answer with a smart display: Google Nest Hub Google Marrying Google’s ever-helpful voice assistant to a 7-inch touchscreen, the Nest Hub smart display is much more than a device to control your music playlist or play ambient white noise (though both use cases can make working from home more pleasant). You can also use the Nest Hub to run fact-checks (“When did Musk become the CEO of Twitter?”); get direct spellings of words that elude spellcheck; verify the dates of important trade shows and other events; set workday alarms and reminders; and pretty much search everything on Google hands-free, receiving both audio and video results on a separate, independent display. Once you start exploring the work-from-home benefits of a smart display, you’ll never stop. Get the Google Nest Hub Smart Display for $99.99 at BestBuy Protect your devices with a surge protector: TP-Link Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip TP-Link Many people take for granted the vulnerability of their electronic devices to power spikes. Unfortunately, after your equipment gets fried is the worst time to realize your mistake. By purchasing a surge protector, you’re only paying a little amount of money to help ensure the safety of your much more expensive electronics. The TP-Link Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip goes above and beyond a normal everyday surge protector by offering six outlets that can all be controlled and scheduled individually with a mobile app or voice commands, and three USB charging ports. The scheduling system is robust and allows for ultimate flexibility in choosing when to power your devices on and off automatically for any kind of routine or travel need. Get the TP-Link Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip at Amazon for $44.99 Create a full-on workstation: Belkin Thunderbolt 3 Dock Core Docking Station Belkin Your ultraportable laptop may be perfect for commuting to and from the office, but when you’re working from home you want a dedicated workstation with the ability to connect all of your peripherals. A Thunderbolt dock will help you expand your laptop’s capabilities and allow you to connect to a larger monitor and a full-sized keyboard. You’ll increase your productivity and your body will thank you for the ergonomic upgrade. We’ve tested a ton of Thunderbolt docks and the Belkin Thunderbolt 3 Dock Core is our favorite budget-friendly option. It gives you the reliable Thunderbolt 3 standard, HDMI and a DisplayPort 1.4 ports, all in a package that is easy to travel with and won’t take up much room on your desk. Get the Belkin Thunderbolt 3 Dock Core for $69.99 at Walmart Or opt for a less expensive USB-C hub: UGREEN Revodok USB-C Hub Hiearcool If you don’t want to drop the cash on a Thunderbolt dock, you should at least consider getting a USB-C hub. Modern laptops tend to lack all of the ports you need to connect peripherals and that’s where a USB-C hub comes in. They are cheap and they allow you to significantly expand your port options. We recommend the UGREEN Revodok USB-C Hub as it gives you a variety of USB-A as well as USB-C ports and microSD and HDMI slots, all for under $20. Get the UGREEN Revodok USB-C Hub for $15.99 at Amazon Don’t skimp on your screen: Dell Ultrasharp U2724DE Matt Smith Working from home is all about productivity, and one of the best pieces of hardware to boost productivity is a great monitor. The Dell Ultrasharp U2724DE is an extremely versatile monitor with a sharp IPS Black panel and enhanced 120Hz refresh rate. It sports excellent image quality, a wide color gamut, and outstanding connectivity options. There are a ton of great monitors out there, but the Dell Ultrasharp U2724DE has an excellent mix of features for anyone who has wants a premium experience without the premium price. Get the Dell Ultrasharp U2724DE for $489.99 at Dell Upgrade that new screen’s ergonomics: Ergotron LX Premium Monitor Arm Matt Smith/Foundry A good monitor arm is one of the best upgrades you can make to your home office setup. It’ll open up way more options to move and position your display around your desk and it frees up precious desktop space as well. The Ergotron LX Premium Monitor Arm is our favorite monitor arm for a reason. It’s sturdy, practical, and can pair with almost any monitor around. The LX Premium is designated as an “entry-level” model, but it comes with specs that you’d expect from something much more expensive. It can support monitors up to 25 pounds and comes with 75 degrees of tilt, plus 360 degrees of rotation and pan. Get the Ergotron LX Premium Monitor Arm for $209.00 at amazon Consider ergonomics: Logitech Lift & Keychron Q8 keyboard Foundry If you’re working from home all day, you need to be comfortable and a standard mouse and keyboard just won’t cut it. Focusing on ergonomics, the Logitech Lift mouse and Keychron Q8 keyboard were built to help keep your hands and wrists in a more comfortable and less injury-prone position. Michael Crider/IDG The Lift mouse can be purchased for either left or right hands and comes in a variety of colors. It’s also wireless, which helps you minimize desktop clutter. The Keychron Q8 keyboard is a bit pricey, but gives you the satisfying feel and dependability of a mechanical keyboard while the curved design allows your wrists to rest in a more natural and comfortable position while typing. Get the Logitech Lift Mouse for $69.99 at Amazon Get the Keychron Q8 Keyboard for $199.00 at Keychron Go wireless: Logitech MK540 Advanced Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Combo If you don’t want to spend big on a mouse and keyboard, you can find a more affordable alternative in the Logitech MK540 Advanced Wireless Keyboard and Mouse combo. Coming in at an affordable $50, the keyboard is surprisingly snappy and has a pleasant tactile experience without too much noise. The mouse provides smooth and reliable use and has a few programmable gestures you can set for your convenience. Both are wireless, so you can do away with all of those annoying cables cluttering your desktop. Get the Logitech MK540 Wireless Keyboard and Mouse for $49.95 at Amazon Backup software is a must: iDrive Online Cloud Backup Many people neglect to consider backup when working from home, but if your IT department isn’t covering you and your data, it’s something that needs to be addressed. Luckily there are relatively inexpensive services such as iDrive Online Cloud Backup that make it simple to do. iDrive is comprehensive and versatile and allows you to set up and use the backup service without any fuss. It’s a one-stop shop to help keep your valuable data safe and secure. Get iDrive for $79.50 at iDrive So is a robust PDF editor: Adobe Acrobat Pro DC PDFs are a staple of any modern digital workplace, but they aren’t always the easiest to edit. There are a ton of great PDF editors out there, but Adobe Acrobat Pro DC has been, and continues to be, the reigning champ. There is no other software that combines the same features for creating, editing, reviewing, and securing your PDF documents. Plus, the subscription-based format means that you’ll always have access to the latest version and won’t need to continually buy new software every year. Get Adobe Acrobat Pro DC for $19.99 per month at Adobe Ease eye-strain: BenQ ScreenBar BenQ ScreenBar BenQ To save space on your desk and reduce eye-strain there is no better option than a screenbar — a USB-powered desk lamp that attaches to the top of your monitor. When BenQ debuted its ScreenBar it had us wondering why no one had thought of this extremely practical solution before. It’ll save you desk space and keep you from going cross-eyed from squinting through the reflections on your monitor all day. Admittedly, it’s a bit pricey, but your eyes will thank you in the long run. Get the BenQ ScreenBar for $109.00 at Amazon The conventional desk lamp option: IKEA Forså If you don’t want to shell out the money for a screenbar or it just isn’t your style, then the tried-and-true desk lamp can be a great alternative. At just over $30, the IKEA Forså provides form and function to help keep your desk looking chic and well lit.  It comes with excellent adjustability, a cool old-school chrome design, and a straightforward on/off switch to keep things dead-simple. Get the Ikea Forså Desk Lamp for $34.99 at IKEA Keep upright: Jarvis Bamboo Standing desk When working from home you have a tendency to stay seated for long periods of time even more so than working in an office. And no matter how comfy that fancy ergonomic office chair is, sitting in it all day isn’t ideal. The best way to keep your body happy while working at a desk is to switch to an electric height-adjustable standing desk.  The Jarvis Bamboo Standing desk not only looks nice with its clean bamboo top, but it’s practical too. It comes with an impressive height adjustment range, solid stability (even when maxed out), a great warranty, and decent customization options — it ticks all the boxes for things you want in the perfect standing desk. Get the Jarvis Bamboo Standing Desk for $744 at HermanMiller Set the mood: Lutron Diva Smart Dimmer Michael Brown/Foundry A smart light switch isn’t an obvious necessity, until you have one. Being able to control the lighting system in your home office via voice controls, motion detection, or your smartphone is a simple luxury that can pay dividends — both in your mood and in your energy bill. The Lutron Diva Smart Dimmer is built to work with the Lutron Caséta ecosystem, but it also provides broad compatibility with different smart products and systems such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and many others. It also has a minimalist design that doesn’t draw attention to itself. Get the Lutron Diva Smart Dimmer for $69.95 at Home Depot Stay warm: Vornado VH200 Heater In those cold months of winter you need a way to keep warm and comfortable while you work at home. A space heater such as the Vornado VH200 Heater is a great way to keep your energy bill down while still warming a specific area. The Vornado is small enough that it won’t take up too much room in your office, but powerful enough that it can heat an entire room by itself. It’s also extremely quiet, meaning you can focus on your work without being distracted by an overly noisy fan. Get the Vornado VH200 Heater for $68.00 at Walmart Say no to cables: Anker 633 Magnetic Wireless Charging Stand Anker A clean desktop can help you stay productive and focused while working at home. One of the best ways to reduce your cord clutter is to switch to a wireless phone charger. It’s also one of the most convenient and hassle-free ways to charge your mobile devices. Right now there’s no better wireless charger than the Anker 633 Magnetic Wireless Charging stand. This 10,000mAh battery provides some of the fastest Android charging we’ve ever tested, it has a clean, minimalist look, and the magnetic stand keeps your phone securely upright, making checking notifications a breeze. Get the Anker 633 Magnetic Wireless Charging Stand for $54.99 at Amazon Get some computer speakers: Creative Pebble Creative A full, booming 7.1 surround-sound speaker setup might be great for watching movies and playing games, but for work you don’t need anything nearly as fancy. If you’re working at home you just want something that will produce clear audio during meetings or while listening to some background LoFi beats to help keep you focused. Save yourself some money and go with the Creative Pebble speakers, which for only $40 produce deep and rich audio that you would expect from something two or three times the price. Plus they don’t take up much space and look really good on a desktop. Get the Creative Pebble Speakers for $34.84 at Amazon Do-it-all productivity: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 Lenovo You need a laptop while working at home and there are none more suited to the task than the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6. It sports great performance thanks to its Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 CPU, Qualcomm Adreno integrated graphics, and 32GB of RAM. It will not only easily tackle any word processing and spreadsheet work you throw at it, but it can also handle web-browsing while you’re on your “lunch break.” It has a 1920×1200 display with a glare-blocking matte finish, which is ideal for viewing in any environment, and a comfortable keyboard for marathon typing or coding sessions. Get the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 for $1,181.40 at Lenovo Back to basics: Lenovo Flex 5i Chromebook Plus IDG / Ashley Biancuzzo If you want something a little more portable (or affordable) than a full-fledged productivity machine like the Lenovo ThinkPad, then look no further than the Lenovo Flex 5i—we’re big fans of Lenovo laptops here, can you tell? This Chromebook has fast performance and a versatile 2-in-1 form factor. Meaning you can either use it as a regular laptop or flip the screen around and use it like a tablet. It’s also portable enough to take to the coffee shop when you need a change of scenery. So long as you don’t require Windows while working, the Flex 5i is a great everyday option. Get the Lenovo Flex 5i Chromebook Plus for $499.00 at BestBuy Read...

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Back in 2021, when Windows 11 was first announced, there was an interesting feature called Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) that was teased, then publicly released in 2022. WSA allows users to run Android apps directly on Windows 11 PCs. Unfortunately, on March 5, 2024, Microsoft officially deprecated the feature and announced that the Amazon Appstore plus all its apps and games will stop working come March 5, 2025. If you have the Amazon Appstore or Android apps installed on your Windows 11 PC using WSA, they’ll stay operable until the deprecation date. The problem is that WSA is actually quite popular, and the move to deprecate the compatibility layer has been met with harsh criticism on Microsoft’s Feedback Hub. According to Windows Latest, numerous users are upset and asking Microsoft to reconsider, hopeful that Android app support will continue on Windows 11 in some form: “When building an Android app, it is essential to see in a Production environment, and WSA provided this option by allowing you to launch a developed APK for UAT/Beta Testing.” “It’s hard not to feel frustrated when you start using an unpolished feature with the backing of the worst app store only for it to be left unimproved until it’s yanked out from under you.” “Just let me have WSA.” Many of those users have pointed out that key Android apps don’t have proper Windows equivalents or are seriously lacking compared to other options. For example, the Android version of Apple Music is significantly better than the Windows version. Some people even opted to get a Surface Pro over other tablet models for its ability to run Android apps: “I just got a Surface Pro 9 5G to replace my iPad… and a major factor of that is due to Android apps. I’m a business user and no longer need to have an iPad. WSA has become [an] ultimate tool on Windows even if it isn’t polished. Please keep working on it, it has become invaluable to me.” But the likelihood of Microsoft changing its mind is low, as the company simply doesn’t make any money from WSA in its current form. Read...

If you’re like me, a laptop is probably your main (or even only) computer. The convenience is unmatched and it can go with us anywhere. But time catches up with us all, and laptops are especially susceptible. If you’re feeling the age of your laptop and wish you could inject more power and life into it so it lasts you a few more years, you might consider upgrading some of its parts. After all, even if your laptop isn’t a modular Framework laptop, it can likely still upgrade some of its components. Related: Why Framework’s DIY laptops are so awesome But which laptop parts are worth upgrading? And which ones are you better off ignoring? Keep reading because I’m breaking it all down. What you can’t upgrade in laptops Upgrading laptops can be tricky business. With so many components packed into such tight spaces, laptops are notably more restrictive compared to desktops — and those tight confines force manufacturers to make different design decisions. Practically, that often means meant-to-be-permanent builds with minimal DIY upgrade options. In other words, certain laptop parts can’t be upgraded, period. A quick Google search might misguide you, though, and I’ve even seen Lenovo suggest that “almost any component inside your laptop can be upgraded if necessary,” even CPUs and GPUs. The sad truth is that CPUs and GPUs are almost never upgradeable in laptops because they’re usually bonded to their motherboards. And on older laptops, displays are effectively impossible to replace because they’re hard to get to and much more involved. Even with embedded DisplayPort, it may not be as straightforward as other upgrades. Ultimately, this means you don’t have many options for speeding up your laptop and improving the overall experience, which sucks when it starts to lag, when it can’t keep up with the increasing demands of modern apps, when it starts to feel old and outdated. That said, let’s dive into the most commonly upgraded laptop parts and which ones to upgrade depending on what issues you’re facing. Related: Common mistakes that kill your laptop’s lifespan  Is it worth upgrading a laptop’s RAM? Many laptops have upgradeable memory, though even this is becoming less common these days. If your laptop has LPDDR memory, it’s pretty much guaranteed to be soldered to the motherboard and won’t be upgradeable. If you don’t see that “LP,” though, you may be in luck. But sometimes it’s hard to know what kind of RAM you have because it isn’t always explicitly advertised. You may have to check with your laptop manufacturer. Or, if you’re feeling adventurous, you might open up your laptop’s bottom cover to investigate yourself. Artiom Vallat / Unsplash Upgradeable laptop memory will look like the green circuit board in the picture above. In that same photo, you can see a second (empty) memory slot to the left of the installed memory — great news for those looking to upgrade, as they can just stick in a second memory module. Related: How to tell what kind of RAM you have A RAM upgrade is one of the best improvements you can make to a laptop. Think of RAM as like your desk and SSD storage as like a file cabinet. The bigger your desk, the more space you have for open files; when you run out of desk space, additional files are kept in the file cabinet. If your desk space is too small, you end up having to move files back and forth from the cabinet to your desk. That’s what happens when you don’t have enough RAM in your laptop. As your RAM fills up, additional data spills over into much slower drives, and moving data from drives to RAM can be slow. Without enough RAM, your system will feel sluggish and less responsive, and idle apps might even freeze when you return to them as data is pulled back into RAM. Some apps may even require more RAM than exists on your system, in which case they’ll simply fail to run. (Imagine trying to work on a massive poster on a tiny side table. Not enough space to fit the whole thing!) For that, a memory upgrade may be all you need. Note that even with upgradeable memory, you can’t just stick any RAM module into your laptop. You’ll need a compatible RAM type, and you may have to replace your current memory module if your laptop only has a single slot for RAM. See our full guide to upgrading laptop RAM. Related: How much RAM do you need in a laptop? Is it worth upgrading a laptop’s SSD? Laptop storage comes in many shapes and sizes. If you have an older laptop, it’s possible you’re still looking at a spinning hard drive (HDD) inside your system. But most modern laptops have switched to faster solid-state drives (SSD), which can be downright tiny in comparison. Sadly, the growing push to shrink everything down has meant fewer upgrade possibilities. But not always. Gordon Mah Ung / IDG If your laptop still has an HDD, upgrading to an SSD is one of the most worthwhile upgrades you can make. If you have a 2.5-inch SATA HDD, it can easily replace it with a 2.5-inch SATA SSD. This alone will dramatically speed up your system with shorter boot-up times, faster app launches, and faster file transfers. When your RAM needs to move data back and forth from storage, this faster storage will also help. Related: How to clone an HDD to SSD for free If your laptop already has an SSD, the value of upgrading comes down to personal judgment according to your needs. If you’re mainly gaming or doing creative work, the extra speed of a faster drive can be significant, especially going from SATA to NVMe. If you just want faster file transfers, the SSD likely isn’t as much of a bottleneck as the ports on your system. After all, even a Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 port lacks the bandwidth to match the speed of many PCIe 4.0 SSDs. Related: SATA vs. NVMe vs. M.2, explained If you already have an SSD in your laptop and aren’t working on bandwidth-intensive projects, your reasons to upgrade are even fewer. Basically, the main reason to upgrade here would be increased storage capacity. Since many laptops come with just 128GB or 256GB, you might think it’s worthwhile to upgrade to 512GB, 1TB, or more, especially because SSDs lose performance when capacity fills up. If you already have an SSD in your laptop but also have an extra storage slot that’s unused, it’s probably worth getting a second drive. Just bear in mind that any additional components will consume power, so adding a second drive will impact your laptop’s battery life a bit. When thinking about adding extra storage, also consider what you need the capacity for. If you need it to store games or apps, then it makes sense to go for internal storage. But if you’re archiving documents, photos, and videos, think external storage like flash drives and portable SSDs. If you decide to go ahead with this but need some help, check out our full guide to adding or replacing an SSD in your laptop. Related: How much SSD space do you really need? Is it worth upgrading the network card? Did you know you can upgrade your laptop’s network card? Did you even know there’s such a thing as a network card? It’s the thing that provides Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Ethernet connectivity to your laptop, and it’s one of the most overlooked upgradeable components. Mika Baumeister / Unsplash If you have an older laptop with an outdated network card that’s stuck on something like Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) or even Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n), then you might want to bump it up to a card with Wi-Fi 6 or 6E (802.11ax), which will bring faster speed and improved stability. Related: Why you should upgrade to Wi-Fi 6 or 6E On the other hand, if you’re experiencing problems with your Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connections and no amount of troubleshooting addresses it, you might just need to replace it. The tricky thing about network card upgrades is that you need to check for compatibility, to ensure your laptop has the right slot and antennas for the new network card and that your system supports any newer tech (e.g., an old OS may not support a new Wi-Fi standard). Further reading: Which laptops are the most upgradeable? Read...

When an SSD, hard drive, or old notebook is sold, people usually delete their personal files beforehand. However, many users do not realize that the hard drive often still contains information that is of great interest to curious people or criminals, for example: The browser history can allow conclusions to be drawn about surfing behavior and bank details. Stored email traffic reveals details of business transactions and provides information on subscribed streaming services and times when no one is at home. FTP tools such as Filezilla offer to save access data so that the user does not have to enter it again and again, thus opening up access to FTP servers of companies and organizations. Browsers open the way to accounts and services of all kinds via their password managers. FTP clients such as Filezilla offer to save the access data to frequently used FTP servers. This data is freely accessible if the hard drive is lost. IDG Complete erasure of the hard drive required Windows and applications hide your personal data in numerous places in the file system and in databases such as the registry, where it is almost impossible to find. It is therefore advisable to completely erase the drive before you hand it over. How you proceed depends on the type of storage medium. In the private sector, practically every computer today contains an SSD. The drives are many times faster than hard disks and they are robust. With SSDs, it is very difficult and often even impossible to recover deleted files. This is easier with mechanical hard drives, but they are almost only found in NAS devices and in company storage systems, where high capacities and lower acquisition costs are more important than speed. USB sticks and external hard drives, on the other hand, obey completely different rules to internal models. Let’s start with the internal SSDs first. Deleting data partitions on solid state drive Right-click on a partition to easily format or completely delete data using Windows Disk Management.Foundry The first step is to delete the data partition(s), if present, i.e. drive D:, E:, F: and the like. This can be easily done by formatting with the disk management: Right-click on the Start icon in the taskbar, go to “Disk Management.” Alternatively, you can also use diskmgmt in the search field of the taskbar. Right-click on the partition you want to delete and go to “Format.” In the following dialog window, delete the tick in front of “Perform quick format” — this will actually remove the files from the drive and not just their entries in the Master File Table (MFT). Then start the process by clicking “OK.” Deleting the system partition with a boot CD or stick Deleting the system partition, i.e. the C: drive, is a little more complicated. As Windows is installed on this drive and cannot delete itself, you need a bootable installation medium from which to carry out the deletion process. If you have a Windows DVD, use it to boot your computer. If you do not have a DVD, you will need a bootable USB stick for the process. Microsoft provides the Media Creation Tool on its website, which you can use to pack the Windows installation files onto a stick. Foundry The easiest way to create such a stick is with the Media Creation Tool, which is available free of charge from Microsoft. After you have agreed to the license terms, click on “Next,” and specify under “Select medium to be used” that you would like to create a USB stick. A stick with a capacity of at least 8GB is required. Insert the stick and click on “Update drives” if necessary. After clicking on “Next,” the Media Creation Tool deletes the existing files on the stick and populates it with the Windows installation files. The finished stick is bootable. Start your computer with it and click on “Next > Install now” when the country settings appear. Click on “I don’t have a product key” and select one of the Windows versions offered. Tick the box next to the license agreement, click “Next,” and select “Custom: Install Windows only.” Then select the system drive — you can recognize it by the name you have given the partition — and click on “Delete.” You can then cancel the installation by closing the window. The SSD is now completely empty, drive C: no longer exists and is listed as unallocated storage space. With an SSD, it is also virtually impossible to restore the data previously saved there. This is primarily due to the Trim function (see next section). Making SSDs and hard disks unusable If you’d rather not pass along an SSD or hard drive to another person, you can simply destroy both mechanically. This will ensure that no-one can read the data contained on them. First remove the drive from the computer. This also works with most notebooks. They have a cover secured with a screw on the underside, behind which you will find the SSD. Normally, the data carrier is only plugged in. To make the hard drive or SSD unreadable, either take a drill and drill a hole in it vertically. Or you can hammer a strong nail through the housing. Caution: Risk of injury! One hole is enough to damage the drive to such an extent that it is practically impossible to recover the data. Secure deletion thanks to the Trim command The Trim command ensures that SSDs are written to evenly, thus extending the service life of the drive. The command is now supported by practically all SSD drives for the SATA interface. It has been included in Windows since version 7 and is active by default. Normally, you do not need to do anything else, the Trim function runs automatically in the background. If you delete data from an SSD, Trim informs the drive that these storage areas are no longer being used. The next time the computer switches to idle mode, the drive’s Active Garbage Collection ensures that all areas marked by Trim as no longer valid are released for deletion. Permanently remove data from hard drives The situation is somewhat different with hard drives. They do not have a Trim command, so the data can still be recovered after deletion and even after formatting with some effort. Here too, however, there are ways and means of making the data permanently unreadable. For data partitions, you can use tools such as Ascomp Secure Eraser. This will not only delete the files the drive contains, but also overwrite it with random data. With Secure Eraser, click on “Securely erase hard drive/partition” on the start screen, select the drive in the following window, and click on the downward-pointing arrow next to the “Start erasure process” button. This opens a drop-down menu in which several methods for overwriting with data are available. A single overwrite is sufficient to make the files unreadable, so select the “Low” or “Normal” setting. Then click on “Start deletion” to begin the deletion process. You can use the Secure Eraser tool from Ascomp to reformat data drives and overwrite them with random data.ASCOMP You have to proceed differently with a system partition. As Windows cannot delete itself, you need a live system with which you can boot your computer from a CD/DVD or USB stick. You can then delete the data on C: from there. In contrast to an SSD, it is necessary to overwrite the deleted memory areas with new data afterwards so that the original content can no longer be reconstructed. The freeware Darik’s Boot and Nuke, DBAN for short, has proven itself for this purpose. First download the ISO file. Then connect a USB stick to your PC. It does not need to be large; the tool only requires around 16MB of space. Download and install the Rufus freeware and enter the DBAN ISO file in the “Startup type” field. Then let Rufus create a bootable USB stick and start your PC from this drive. With Darik’s Boot and Nuke you can boot your PC from a USB stick and then securely delete and overwrite the existing drives. IDG Darik’s Boot and Nuke is based on a stripped-down Linux system without a graphical user interface. After starting, you can use the command autonuke to automatically delete and overwrite all data on your hard drive. Alternatively, you can select the desired options by pressing the Enter key. Securely erase USB drives Although USB sticks and hard drives are closely related to SSDs, they do not support the Trim command. You should therefore also format the stored files after deleting them. The aforementioned Ascomp Secure Eraser software can only erase and overwrite hard drives and SSDs. The freeware Disk Wipe is suitable for USB drives. Open the program, select the drive, and click on “Wipe Disk.” In the first window, the wizard will ask you for the desired file system. Normally NTFS is the best choice. After clicking on “Next,” select how the data should be overwritten. Here, “One Pass Zeros” or “One Pass Random” is sufficient. In both settings, Disk Wipe performs an overwrite process for the data. Click on “Next,” type erase all in the input field, click on “Finish,” and confirm the erasure process. The program will then first format the drive and then start overwriting the individual memory cells. Deleting data on NAS devices NAS devices contain several hard disks or SSDs, which they format with a Linux file system. For secure deletion processes, you should therefore use the commands of the NAS operating system. Both Synology and Qnap devices are capable of securely deleting data. With Synology, open the “Storage Manager” in the main menu and select “HDD/SSD.” Select the drive you want to edit and click on “Action > Secure Erase.” You will probably need to remove the drive from the storage pool first. For a Qnap model, open the Control Panel and then go to “System -> Backup/Restore > Reset to factory settings.” Then click on “Restore factory settings & format all volumes.” Alternatively, you can also remove the hard drives/SSDs from the NAS enclosures, install them in your Windows PC, format them with NTFS, and then overwrite them as shown in the article. Read...