Moving Office IT: Servers, Monitors & the Friday Cutover
In every office move, IT is the part that decides whether Monday happens. Furniture can arrive scuffed and life goes on; the server can't. This is the IT-specific layer under the office move checklist.
The week before: backup and map
- **Verified backups of everything** — tested-restore verified, not "the backup ran." The move is statistically when drives die.
- **Photograph every desk and rack** — cabling photos are the rebuild manual
- **Label per the desk map:** every machine, monitor, dock, and cable bag gets its destination desk number — the label system IS the IT move
- **Circuit reality check:** internet at the new office live and tested BEFORE move weekend (the 4–8 week lead time strikes here)
Transport rules
- **Monitors:** TV rules at fleet scale — upright, snug boxes or monitor crates, never stacked flat
- **Desktops:** wrapped upright, never under anything
- **Servers/NAS:** drives are the crown jewels — small arrays often ride in a car with a person; racks move padded, upright, last-on-first-off
- **Laptops:** never in the truck — each employee carries their own, full stop
The rebuild order
Network first (router, switches, wifi — nothing works without it), then the shared services (server, printers), then workstations by department priority, then the conference-room everything-else. One IT-literate person stationed at the new office during unload, directing by the desk map, saves the whole company an idle Monday morning.
FAQs
How do you move computers in an office move?
Verified backups first, cable photos per desk, everything labeled with its destination desk number, monitors and towers transported upright in snug packaging — and laptops carried by their owners, never in the truck.
What gets set up first after an office move?
The network (router, switches, wifi), then shared services like servers and printers, then workstations in department-priority order. Internet service itself must be installed and tested before move weekend.