How long do you keep a computer?

[srblanco7]

Currently typing this on an Acer laptop. This is our second Acer laptop and they've been pretty solid with the last one lasting more than 6 years with regular use. I am a fan of SSDs rather than traditional hard drives to help to extend the working life of laptops (have always heard that the heat generated from a traditional hard drive is an enemy of longevity).

[riverwed070707]

Agreed. Planned obsolescence is most definitely an operational strategy used by Apple.

At least the Macbook worked out. It is always a bit of a gamble when you attempt to fix something yourself, but I still think it was worth it, even if it did end poorly in the second case.

I can't stress enough the importance of backing your data up. Once a month or so make a copy to a USB drive. Personally I keep a copy of my files on a USB drive in my house, and once or twice a year I switch it with a drive I keep off site (in the case the house ever burns down). I am not familiar with Apple's cloud services. I do keep a few files on Google Drive, but I don't know if that is better than Apple's services.

It's wild to me that with cloud access and integration people are still taking the time to manually back up their machines. I guess if you work on a company device and just use your personal for bill pay/web browsing that's a risk you could take but I couldn't fathom losing a weeks worth or work, let alone a month. Additionally, USBs and hard drives can get corrupted easily in which case you've still lost your data. I have full cloud integration to my file explorer so all of my documents are backed up to the cloud real time. If my computer goes down tomorrow, I can replace or repair and either way I have instant access to everything with a couple extensions and password entries. I don't care as much about backing up my phone with the exception of my photos - I use google photos for that which is also automated and WAY better than iCloud IMO.

[ua_guy]

It's wild to me that with cloud access and integration people are still taking the time to manually back up their machines. I guess if you work on a company device and just use your personal for bill pay/web browsing that's a risk you could take but I couldn't fathom losing a weeks worth or work, let alone a month. Additionally, USBs and hard drives can get corrupted easily in which case you've still lost your data. I have full cloud integration to my file explorer so all of my documents are backed up to the cloud real time. If my computer goes down tomorrow, I can replace or repair and either way I have instant access to everything with a couple extensions and password entries. I don't care as much about backing up my phone with the exception of my photos - I use google photos for that which is also automated and WAY better than iCloud IMO.

Just my humble opinion, but it's wild to me that people are so trusting of anything Cloud-based. My backups are automated and they happen several times per day - very easy to set up with Apple Time Machine. But that is a physical drive which is secured on my own network. I keep other backups which I do manually, periodically, and keep that drive somewhere else. I'm never reliant on someone else's service, security, or device to hold my data.

Now, the likelihood that someone does anything or even cares what you or me, as a personal user, keep stored in a cloud, is very minimal--the effortayoff isn't worth it. But you've given up control of that data - anything from tax returns and financial data, password repositories, copies of sensitive documents, embarrassing photos?, etc can be stolen, replicated, ransom-wared. If you use a password manager, is it storing your passwords in the cloud? Might want to think twice about that, if a cloud service gets popped, every single one of your passwords is then compromised.

Companies which rely on clouds to store their data are vulnerable to outages, attacks, and everything else. The cloud is good, but, it's not *that* good.

And I might be married to a cybersecurity professional so I'm sure the stories I hear spook me more than they should.

[disneysteve]

I don't get the whole cloud backup thing either, though I do use Google Photo. But backing up my own data including personal and financial stuff? I want that on physical media that remains in my possession. Also, don't the cloud storage services charge an ongoing fee? You can buy a 1 TB external hard drive for about $50 so it's hardly a big investment.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I am paying .99 cents a month for Apple's cloud storage because an older iPhone 7 used to always have a pop up window saying that my storage was almost full so I just paid them and still paying it to this day.

Also, I am paying $1.99 a month for Google's cloud storage because my gmail accounts had a similar Apple type pop up window saying that my storage was almost full so I'm paying that too. I tried deleting messages in gmail or pics in my iPhone to no avail so I succumbed to paying them. If anyone has recommendations how I can get around paying for these 2 cloud services I'd love to hear them.

[ua_guy]

For mail, I’m of the mindset that sent and deleted folders should be emptied regularly. Any attachments should be pulled and saved on a local drive, or else deleted.

Photos/videos are usually the media that eat iPhone storage. You should be pulling your photos off the phone- not just importing them to a local drive, but deleting them off the phone too. And then nuking the “recently deleted” photos folder too. Delete apps you don’t use.

iPhone text messages can clog up your iCloud storage. I have my text messages set to auto-delete after 30 days. Else they just stack up and eat storage.

[myrdale]

I don't get the whole cloud backup thing either, though I do use Google Photo. But backing up my own data including personal and financial stuff? I want that on physical media that remains in my possession. Also, don't the cloud storage services charge an ongoing fee? You can buy a 1 TB external hard drive for about $50 so it's hardly a big investment.

I personally do not like the idea of cloud services either. I have an external hard drive on which I back all my files up every couple of months. I additionally have a pair of high capacity thumb drives (512G iirc) which I have an additional copy. One of the drives I keep off site, in the off chance the house burns down. I update and switch the thumb drives once every 6 months or so.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Upgraded 32 gb Viper RAM, OEM came with 8 gb, so now 40 gb RAM, blazing fast. Will upgrade later the 125 gb M.2 to maybe 500 or 1 terabyte. Then in a year or 2, sell this laptop and buy another new laptop, lather, rinse and repeat.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Just ordered this Lenovo from Walmart $329, touch screen 15." A Dell 14" touchscreen that I bought in Oct 2021 has an ongoing problem where the mouse disappears. I've tried updating the drivers and restoring to factory settings (about 10x's) which fixes the issue but after a couple of days the mouse disappears again. Have to resort to using an external mouse. Weill sell the Dell as soon as I get the Lenovo. Seems like for me every 1 - 3 years I buy a new laptop. I just bought another new Dell 15" non-touchscreen laptop for $279 2 months ago which is still good.

Lenovo-IMSourcing IdeaPad 15.6" Touchscreen Laptop, Intel Core i3 i3-1115G4, 256GB SSD, Windows 11 Home in S mode, 81X800KLUS - Walmart.com

[james.hendrickson]

Did you get cash back on the walmart order?

[QuarterMillionMan]

It's a funny thing that you asked because after I made the purchase I thought about that too but it was too late because I had already made the purchase using my credit card. Had I paid with Paypal there would have been a 1% cash back at Walmart or 3% cash back with Lenovo. It's too late now and I cannot cry over spilled milk.

[JGreenwood]

It depends on the make of it. I've had a macbook pro that's lasted 4 years so far and still going strong. Whereas my hp probook was barely useful after about 3 years

[QuarterMillionMan]

On Sunday I bought from Best Buy this $329 Lenovo touch screen laptop with a 12th generation core I5 processor. Today on Monday it is $419, just 1 day later. My old Dell non-touch 11th generation laptop is slow and freezes often which I'll wipe the hard drives and sell on eBay later. This new laptop is fast at processing speeds. It'll be a lot faster when I upgrade the 8 GB RAM to 32 GB. I may upgrade the SSD from 516 GB to 1 Terabyte later as well.

[ua_guy]

Still going on the laptop I bought in 2022. It's been fantastic!

[disneysteve]

Funny that this popped up. We bought a new iMac a few days ago. Last one was purchased 12/2018 so just over 6 years. The old one started crashing on me. I will mess with it and see if I can do any updates or anything else to keep it going but I couldn’t afford to be without a dependable computer with my online business.

At least computers are one thing immune from inflation. In 2018 we paid $1,500 for a 21-inch iMac. Now we paid $1,500 for a 24-inch iMac with far better specs all around.