Is it acceptable to use personal equipment for research?
Another PhD student in my floor asked how to fix a slow system. Here is my supervisor's reply:


  If you need to have a fast desktop, the best is to convince your boss to spend 3 days of your salary to buy a top of the line Linux machine (or a week of salary to buy a Mac).


Anything else is stupid on their part. Note that your cost is not only salary, but is also taxes, work insurance, university fees (where applicable), rent of the office...

Addition: Also, they got a grant to pay you, they need you to publish. The longer time you spend waiting for code to run, the less you will publish, and the less competitive they will be for future grants.

*Note: he was being moderately flippant, don't take the two days and top of the line too literally, but the point still stands.



The problem with bringing your own equipment is that:


It is yours, and  if you wanted to do something else with it, you wouldn't.
If it breaks, and a lab is a moderately risky environment, it is your loss and no one else will pay for it. Also, you may not  get support from the IT department to fix it.
It sets a precedent for other students to do the same. The stipend you get as a PhD student is quite meagre, and buying a computer out of it is a significant investment.
In some institutions research data  is considered confidential, and they forbid for it to live in non-institution owned devices.


This said, I often bring my laptop to work when I need the extra mobility, or my own workstation (a top of the line Linux machine) is overworked, but I don't rely on it.