Ask HN: What's your personal hardware EOL policy? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's your personal hardware EOL policy?

8 pointsCoreSet13 comments

I'm very much in the "if it's not broke, don't fix it" camp, which means I have several long-lived devices, including a 2015-era MacBook Pro and an even older Mac Mini.

Despite this, I'm realizing I want to make the move before these old systems break down, especially so I can make sure the old files are transferred over and old passwords synced to new devices.

Is 10 years enough to call it quits on a laptop? Especially now that we've all weathered the MacBook touch bar fiasco.

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I believe in only buying things I really need and using them until they are no longer usable.

Then I sell them for a really low price to give them a second life in another household. Leaving devices lying around unused until they become electronic waste is a sin against the environment.

Yep! Craigslist free section is a very common posting section for me. People are so grateful, even for the smallest of things.

Support your community, friends! Give or sell cheaply your old useful goods.

> Despite this, I'm realizing I want to make the move before these old systems break down, especially so I can make sure the old files are transferred over and old passwords synced to new devices.

Sounds like you need a data backup policy more than a hardware EOL policy.

If your data is secure, run it until it dies, or you need more than it can do.

I try to keep fairly up to date. Selling old stuff to offset the cost of the new thing, while it still has some decent value in it. That said, my upgrade intervals have increased over the past several years. I still need to feel like I'm getting something out of the upgrade.

I did find out the other day one of my Apple TVs is obsolete according to Apple's website. But it still does everything I need and seems to still get updates (which makes me question its obsolete status). I don't see the newer model doing anything I can't do on my current one, so I'm not going to bother upgrading until that changes somehow.

Computers these days are fast enough for almost everything I want to do, except running big LLMs locally. I'm running a used workstation given to me by a friend a few years ago. I tend to run things into the ground. I'm not hugely worried about security, as I'm retired, and pretty much have nothing worth stealing.

I use Backblaze to keep my data safe, and it's saved my bacon more than once.

I'll be switching to Linux once Windows 10 goes EOL for good. I've got to figure out how to migrate away from WikidPad, or fix it to work with Linux before that date. It's the thing that stopped me a few years ago when I had to migrate back.

If the hardware works and you still use it, well... it's fine?

Just set up some sort of basic sync (whether iCloud or 1password or Bitwarden or Chrome/Firefox) between them so you don't lose data or logins. But that's more just a backup thing than anything to do with the hardware.

You shouldn't be risking data loss over hardware failures, old or new.

If you don't need the hardware anymore, donate them. Someone will make use of it or its parts.

> Is 10 years enough to call it quits on a laptop

5 years can be enough. 1 year can be enough.

If a new one comes out that is really appealing and I really want it, why not buy it?

Am I really going to work all day to just put money in the bank for some nebulous future that may never come?

And do I really care that much about my e-waste footprint? No!

My policy is that if it contains any closed-source drivers or firmware, then as soon as the manufacturer stops providing updates for those things, it's time to replace it.

It wasnt that long ago I was using a 16 year old IBM Thinkpad. Wrote a lot of good code on it. It could barely run MATE/Debian.

They go in the hoarder drawer full of old macbooks in case I ever need them again. Next to the old cable drawer.

Around 7 years. I don’t update software that often either (I’m usually 2 versions or so behind, always)

I use Ubuntu LTS on my older hardware. My file and password management strategies are not tied to a particular machine, OS, or vendor. When I buy a new machine, I configure it by hand rather than loading it up with cruft from an old one. Good luck.

How do you manage files in an untied to particular machine manner?

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