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Your computer tower is the most important part of your computer setup. It houses all the components that make your computer a computer. As such, you need to take extreme care of it during a long distance move.

Before Doing Anything, Back Up Your Data

Before preparing your tower for a move, you should back up your important data. There's a multitude of ways to do this.

• You can copy everything from one hard drive to another.
• You can back up all contents to a series of disks or other external storage devices.
• You can make copies of just the things important to you onto a USB drive.
• You can purchase and use a proprietary backup solution.
• Your operating system may have a default backup option.
• Send everything to the cloud.

If possible, you should make multiple backups, or multiple types of backups. You can never be too careful.

What to Do With the Computer Tower

The computer tower houses all the important parts of your desktop or workstation. When you're preparing to move, you will have to consider what to do with it. Most importantly, you shouldn't just place the tower anywhere or in any way for the move.

Taking the tower apart can offer you the most protection, but it's not always necessary. If you're unfamiliar with the internals of a computer tower, then keeping all the pieces inside will likely work best for you.

You should still remove the side of the tower and make sure that everything inside is seated tightly and isn't moving around. If everything seems tight, find a box the tower can fit in.

Wrap the tower in a layer or two of bubble wrap, then place it in the box. Fill gaps with padding. If you have the computer's original box, even better. You can hand it off to your long distance movers worry free.

Taking the tower apart

You can save space and give each component of your tower protection by taking the computer apart. In this way, you can remove the most important components and keep them close to you. Your tower will likely contain at least the following components:

• One or more hard drives
• Graphic card
• Sound card
• Processor
• Network card
• Motherboard
• Power supply

Motherboards are typically tightly screwed into the tower, so you don't have to worry about removing those. Equally, the power supply and processor usually doesn't require removal. You can easily remove the other components and wrap them individually in anti-static bags.

The hard drives that actual hold all your data requires the most care. They're susceptible to moisture, shock, and static. Since they're the things that hold your operating system and all your files, you should take extra care when handling them.

If you're not familiar with taking apart and putting a computer back together, take a picture or two of how everything connects before removing it from the tower. In this way, you can put it all back exactly the way it was when you're moved in at your new location. Long distance movers can give you more advice on the best way to safely move electronics.