You have one. Everyone does. It might be a drawer or maybe the bottom of a closet in a spare room whose door remains firmly shut to hide what’s inside from prying judgmental eyes. Mine is a well-worn storage tote that had the lid tossed long ago because it could not contain the tangled mess inside. I call mine the Bin of Shame, a tongue-in-cheek nickname borne from my reluctant resignation to the apparent necessity of its existence intertwined with years—decades, really—of familiarity. Familiarity, it is often said, breeds contempt. We need to talk about that pile of cables and adapters you have sitting at now-unused desks or in offices or storage rooms “just in case.” We're all guilty of keeping the flimsy HDMI cable that came with your DVD player in 2009. Or the power adapter from that old router because, you know, it might work in a pinch one day. Most IT Pros probably have a pile of cables and adapters at the office acquired from various sources like the ones I just described. It makes sense at the time. "I may need this one day." I get it, and I'm entirely sympathetic. However, the reality of keeping these cables is likely to lead to lost productivity and valuable IT resources spent troubleshooting issues caused by using old, unknown cables with modern technology. 4K UHD video,and commonly 4K60, is now the dominant standard for most common business laptops, desktops, and displays, even at the entry-level. While you probably have asset tags and inventory history for most deployed equipment, cables are usually untagged and treated as quasi-consumables. How long has that DisplayPort cable been sitting at the desk you’re converting into a hoteling station? Has it spent years twisted around something or jammed against a wall? Exactly how good is the HDMI cable you’ve pulled from storage? The truth is that new UHD displays and modern docking stations, laptops, desktops, and other hardware can easily expose the limitations of inferior or wear-stressed cables that were designed and built when 1080p was considered the pinnacle of performance. An underperforming cable means unreliable performance (black screens, OS or hardware errors, audio gaps, artifacts) which translates into increased support and productivity costs. Is the user working remotely? Add additional time and shipping expenses. Compare the cost of a relatively modest 30-minute support interaction plus corresponding lost end-user productivity to the cost of a performance video or data cable from StarTech.com that is built to perform flawlessly at 4K60 and beyond, or connect high-speed USB devices at their full performance potential without batting an eyelash. You don’t need to quit your version of the Bin of Shame cold turkey—maybe start by retiring the most dubious examples you find—but planning for new high-performance cables for all new deployments, with some on hand for those inevitable last-minute replacements, is a sound strategy to avoid expensive and unnecessary support interactions and increase user satisfaction. Want to learn more about the benefits of implementing Performance UHD cables and accessories for your business? Visit our Ultra HD Solutions page. 8K Ultra HD Solutions