Ask Slashdot: How Important Is Upgradable Storage and Memory When Buying a New Computer? 183
davidwr writes: If you were going to buy a desktop or laptop computer, how important is it to be able to upgrade memory and storage after your purchase? Is not being able to upgrade an "automatic no-buy," assuming you can get a computer that meets your needs that is upgradeable? If not, would you be willing to pay a little more for upgradeability? A lot more?
Personally, I like to keep computers 4-6 years, which means I prefer to buy an upgradeable machine then upgrade it after 2 or 3 years using then-much-cheaper or not-available-at-all-today parts. What are your thoughts?
Personally, I like to keep computers 4-6 years, which means I prefer to buy an upgradeable machine then upgrade it after 2 or 3 years using then-much-cheaper or not-available-at-all-today parts. What are your thoughts?
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
If I can't upgrade it, i'm not buying it. That's why I still build my own PCs. For a laptop, it better come with expansion slots.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly, unless there are good reasons (e.g. the desktop is smaller than a cellphone) do not consider buying a desktop that is not at least repairable (i.e. replacable RAM, CPU, HDD/SSD). Laptops are a mixed bag. Should at least have replacable RAM and HDD/SSD.
If not, consider it a throw-away device.
Re: (Score:2)
But I do expect upgradeability as that I do keep my hardware for years and years.
Those reasons being given, I've been waiting for the Mac Pro to finally come out and it checks off all the boxes I want.
Over time I can upgrade graphics cards, CPU, RAM, etc....I get OSX which I enjoy working with and works with my Video/Audio/Still image software I own....
I had long
It depends... (Score:3, Insightful)
I bought a Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB of RAM, even though the RAM is not upgradable. Sure, 4GB sucks, but given how dirt cheap the Pi boards cost, I'm not really worried about it. In a few years when higher RAM versions become available, they'll likely have a better SoC and other benefits, while keeping the price dirt cheap, so who cares that the RAM isn't upgradable?
Now, laptops without upgradable RAM are another story. Even the dirt cheapest Chromebook is still going to be upwards of a hundred bucks, or seve
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I recently bought a great "toy" aka budget laptop - it has a QHD display of decent quality, a dual-core Celeron processor, 4 Gigs of RAM and 64 Gigs of eMMC storage and dual-band Wi-Fi. It has no MicroSD card slot for storage expansion, but it does have an aluminum body and an M.2 storage expansion slot. It can only take 2242 or 2260 size/form cards of a certain obscure interface (not NVMe) but they are easily available at Amazon (for example, 256 Gig for $45). It's from a company called NuVision, and it wa
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"I don't have the time really to research what willl and won't work together"
you're fucking up getting Apple, then. Apple is anti-standards and many COTS components that will work in ANY OTHER PC ON THE PLANET will not work with CRAPPLE products.
Meanwhile, here in the world of real PCs, the only thing that you can count on not working is an AMD CPU in an Intel motherboard, and vice-versa. DDR4 is fucking DDR4. Expansion cards are fucking expansion cards. SSDs are SSDs.
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I gotta go with, this whole thread used to be true but no so much anymore, they are really becoming appliances.
I want control of the system and privacy and security and no bothersome upgrades just all the bugs finally fixed, more true in software than hardware but not as much as it used to be.
Easy repair ability is also very desirable, upgrade ability no so much any more, I kind of expect it to come with all it needs to last a decade. Choice in supplier of replacement parts is also desirable. Dealing dire
Re: (Score:2)
Can you name a few of these?
I know NVIDIA cards won't work with Apple, I believe this is due to a dispute between the companies over something that happened a few years back, but other than that, I"m not aware of any/many things that won't work on the new Mac...
I'd appreciate if you were to list out some of the "many" COTs components that
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can't replace the mainboard with a COTS, for starters ..
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Most laptops these days now use hard soldered memory these days, even the high-end machines. Luckily M.2's are a dime a dozen as well($35 for 260GB), and a lot of laptops have moved in that direction vs the old mechanical drives as well. As for a PC, the only ones out there that can't be repaired easily are the ones still using custom cables, wiring, or really fucked up things like multiple support cards connected via a bus splitter on a single PCI slot.
Right now, you could spend $300 and build a mid-rang
Re: Yes (Score:2)
Really? O_o At what price point do they start soldering in the RAM? I personally have never seen such a thing, but I have never purchased in the sub-$500 range.
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Most common in the "ultra-thin" category laptops - the sockets used for add-in memory take up too much space.
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While I agree with your sentiment in general, I have bought Mini-ITX motherboards that have fanless CPU coolers with the CPU soldered in place. I think that is an acceptable exception to your rule.
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Indeed. There is an exception to every rule. Especially if you are adding other constraints, such as extremely small size, niche application, etc. But it still becomes a throw-away part.
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How I buy computers (Score:3)
I wait for someone to get sad they can't upgrade their 500GB macbook and sells it for cheap. I buy it and add an SD card or low profile USB stick. Hardly anyone needs to have more than 500GB of fast access storage, you can easily move your itunes and photos and mail and garage band sample and movies and downloads to a slightly slower media.
Then with all the cash I saved on my everyday mac, I can buy some el cheapo extensible linux box for all my big memory graphics, etc. Something that can't be lugger li
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Check out refurb ThinkPads. Companies ditch them after a couple of years and you can get ones in near mint condition, lightly used and any worn parts replaced. Often the SSD is brand new because the company doesn't trust secure wipe.
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_I_ don't ditch them. They make dandy little emergency clusters, especially with small VM's or docker, and their battery life buys emergency power very cheaply. It is also much easier to leave the building with them than to leave with a rack-mounted server or two _if_ you feel the need to leave with the data in hand in an emergency. Yes, I have been confronted with avoiding a search warrant that did _not_ cover my machines, but which I and my company had absolutely no desire to be there arguing with the po
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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From observation over the last few decades, it's usually quite useless. We replace the entire computer, which has upgraded memory, CPU, video, and motherboard to handle them more often than we invest the time and money to upgrade individual components. And it's _risky_ to pry open a modern laptop or even low end desktop to upgrade RAM. The RAM is usually fully populated with the smallest sticks possible, components get _broken_ as you try to unfurl the cabling and extract the old memory, the new memory isn'
Yes (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
So is it really the same computer that you started with? Is your computer named 'Theseus'?
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I imagine you dont have a USB3 port on the front due to the cases age. While the newer motherboards provide USB3 ports on the back, they also provides pins for USB3 on the front... I want at least 2 front-facing USB3's for external USB drives.
Re: (Score:2)
24/7/52 or 24/365
Units scale (Score:3)
s/MB/KB/g
It was still 8bit era, after all.
Buy low and upgrade (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Memory from the manufacturer is going to be more expensive
Eh, sometimes. Depends.
It's Nearly 2020... (Score:5, Interesting)
The heady fast-paced days of the late 1990's and early 2000's are over. The computing landscape is mature. I would wager you are not suddenly going to need a computer with significantly more RAM or storage than the one you are going to buy now, in the same way most other consumer goods you are purchasing nowa re 'fit for purpose' for their anticipated lifespan.
Re:It's Nearly 2020... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nearly 2020 and RAM chips still go bad. Drives still break. SSDs/Flash wear out.
If you cannot replace these, you're eventually going to wish you could.
Re: (Score:2)
And new computers keep getting better and cheaper. I'm not dismissing what you're saying, but 99% of people never run into this issue.
Re: (Score:2)
99% of people don't throw their bought-new computers away, many/most sell or donate them. Which both helps recoup some of the upgrade cost, and dramatically reduces the amount of toxic e-waste produced.
And the second-hand owner will very likely deal with such a problem - in fact there's fair odds that the previous owner decided to upgrade due to the the loss of performance and stability of associated with (possibly undiagnosed) RAM or drive errors.
Because seriously - aside from the minority of gamer or oth
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I've never had that experience. Computers are DOA or suffer infant mortality, but those are under warranty. If it's important, (and somebody else's) I'll buy extended warranty.
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Everything breaks. :(
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The heady fast-paced days of the late 1990's and early 2000's are over. The computing landscape is mature. I would wager you are not suddenly going to need a computer with significantly more RAM or storage than the one you are going to buy now, in the same way most other consumer goods you are purchasing nowa re 'fit for purpose' for their anticipated lifespan.
This.
I buy more performance than I need at the time. That way, I'm ahead of the incremental demands as the years go by. I don't plan on tearing down a computer years later. In my experience (retired IT), drivers go extinct before hardware does.
My computers are disposable.
Until AMD's Ryzens came out (Score:2)
What this means is that you can pretty easily be gaming on a 5 year old CPU and not
Re: (Score:3)
I've kept up a pattern of roughly doubling the memory in my computer every 5 years or so over the last few machines I've had. Interim updates extend the life of the hardware substantially. Buy a machine with 4gb, upgrade to 6gb, next machine 8gb, upgrade to 12, next machine 16, upgrade to 24, next machine 32, etc. Likewise, storage replacement is a normal part of that lifecycle (and necessary to data integrity and productivity - you don't want old drives storing important info; even if you have backups doin
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Bullshit. On the ram side aside from what others have mentioned about replacing bad chips I'm not "suddenly" going to need more of it I *always need more of it but don't necessarily want to buy it all at device purchase time. On the storage side are you kidding me? I'm constantly adding more storage.. everywhere.. never enough.
Re: (Score:2)
have you noticed how all programs increase in size?
game titles are >50 GB and slowly reaching 100 GB *install size*.
holy shit... i just checked. They are gone *past* that.
destiny2 is 165 GB.
Not important for disposable hardware (Score:3)
Depends on how cheap you go and the type of PC (Score:2)
Are you buying something that is only barely passable now? Then you may want to restrict yourself to something upgradable. Are you buying something with 16GB+ of RAM and a 1TB+ SSD in it, and you don't spend your time editing movies? Well in 4-6 years your replacement PC will probably have similar specs and your workload is still not likely to hit that limit.
Upgradability in a 4-6 year lifespan in 201X, a decade where computer memory and disk space requirements has been largely stagnant*, is a requirement r
Re: (Score:2)
My laptop has a 2 TB SSD, and I still want a bigger one. That's the problem. People who make computers have to decide on a set of configurations that will plausibly meet the median needs, and they ignore outliers like me. Or if they take us into account, they charge a colossal premium more storage, all while the actual cost of external storage is falling through the floor. So we end up carrying around a stack of external SSDs taped to the top of the laptop like some kind of Frankensteinian abomination,
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Err, ...they charge a colossal premium for more storage...
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Nope. Just the last year or so worth of photos. Removable storage is too slow when dealing with CR2 files. It works, but just barely. It's just barely good enough to tolerate for really old stuff that I look through or edit infrequently.
Re: (Score:2)
a decade where computer memory and disk space requirements has been largely stagnant
(X) Doubt
The rise in popularity among developers of the Electron framework, which runs each application you install in a separate copy of Chrome, has caused to applications' RAM requirements shoot up. Likewise with websites requiring a particular web browser, such as Skype for Web and Authy requiring Chrome, causing users not to be able to get away with installing and using only Firefox.
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I don't think I can name one single application made with Electron. If I used one, I didn't know it.
Atom, Visual Studio Code, Slack, Discord, Skype, Tusk, Mailspring, Streamlabs OBS, Wordpress Desktop, and WhatsApp Desktop all use Electron (source [wiredelta.com]). This is where you get 300-500 MB for a single chat client, and you need a bunch of them going to keep active with all of your contacts.
Ultra important. (Score:2)
It depends. (Score:5, Interesting)
For my work laptops, I requisition them with gobs of memory and that lets me coast until it's replacement time, four years later.
When advising my family buying laptops and/or phones, I recommend something similar: buy as much storage as you can afford now and use the device as long as you can stand. It's to the point where software speed and/or broken screens is causing us to upgrade rather than failed or insufficient storage. So in those cases, upgradable storage is much less important than in years past.
I still have one legacy deskside computer at home which I built from parts. I can't really say when I bought it because only the case and power supply are original equipment. I did that for fun (and to avoid crapware) not because it made any sort of financial sense. I would never recommend buying or upgrading a computer for someone who wasn't a hardware geek.
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My advice shifted since the manufacturers charge too much for certain features at build time.. I used to say, in-general, buy as much as you can afford BUT for storage every laptop company I've bumped into charges WAY too much for storage upgrades.. especially SSD. SO my advice is buy the cheapest drive they'll allow out the door, buy the one you really want for pennies on the dollar, clone and throw away or gift what shipped with the laptop. (There's a certain minimum tech bar for the clone part so depend
Key aspect (Score:2)
If you can't upgrade it, you also can't repair or replace it.
So if either the memory or storage develops a problem(both being among the most common physical failures), well, you're out a whole new computer rather than a sub $100 part.
That said, Storage is rarely unupgradable, but RAM is often found integrated on some laptops.
"Not upgradable" implies "not repairable" (Score:4, Insightful)
More importantly...this idea is anti-repair (Score:2)
Historically speaking, if you couldn't upgrade storage then you couldn't replace your (spinning disk-based) storage when it inevitably failed. This was why modular storage was a non-negotiable constant in the computer world for so many years.
However, this concern is still applicable even with far lower solid state storage failure rates. Not having modular, replaceable (and thus upgradable) storage is inherently anti-repair. For computer systems of any real expense, being unrepairable is a non-starter, unles
No upgrade? No buy. (Score:2)
The last time I went to upgrade my laptop, about 18 months ago, I made that call.
I needed to replace my MacBook Pro that wouldn't run Mojave. First machine I looked at was the current generation MBP...$2700 in the configuration I wanted, and no upgrade.
Then I looked at the System76 Oryx Pro. Nearly identical configuration, $2300 - and fully upgradeable (well, as much as a laptop ever is). Linux didn't bother me; for the things I do with a laptop, there wasn't anything that would be a problem.
I bought the Or
Do cars need serviceable motor oil? (Score:2)
Furthermore, if a vendor does this they are going to overcharge out the ass for easy to install upgrades. Oh, you want an extra 16 GB or RAM, that will be $250 please. Meanwhile you can buy the same amount of RAM on the open market for $60 or less. Oh, you need more RAM than you
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Actually, plug-in electrics don't have that many moving parts, so not really.
But I agree upgradeable is always better than non-upgradeable. Popping in a electric monster turbine for the boost is always fun.
On a scale of 1 to 10? (Score:4, Interesting)
The last time I upgraded RAM in a laptop was over a decade back. It almost never makes a meaningful difference in real-world performance. Let's call that 2 on a scale of 1 to 10.
Not being able to upgrade storage, however is about as close to a showstopper as you can get, because when you run out of disk space, that's a crisis that brings your computer usage to a screaming halt until you can either migrate things to an external drive or upgrade the storage in your machine. Also, flash storage has limited operational life; it's a wear item. So non-replaceable storage is basically the equivalent of a non-replaceable battery. It's planned obsolescence in the strictest sense of the term. Let's call that 11 on a scale of 1 to 10.
Companies that use non-upgradable soldered-in flash storage should have to pay for the huge ecological impact of that decision. And it should be a high enough fine that they realize the error of their ways.
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The last time I upgraded RAM in a laptop was over a decade back. It almost never makes a meaningful difference in real-world performance. Let's call that 2 on a scale of 1 to 10.
Not being able to upgrade storage, however is about as close to a showstopper as you can get, because when you run out of disk space, that's a crisis that brings your computer usage to a screaming halt until you can either migrate things to an external drive or upgrade the storage in your machine. Also, flash storage has limited operational life; it's a wear item. So non-replaceable storage is basically the equivalent of a non-replaceable battery. It's planned obsolescence in the strictest sense of the term. Let's call that 11 on a scale of 1 to 10.
Companies that use non-upgradable soldered-in flash storage should have to pay for the huge ecological impact of that decision. And it should be a high enough fine that they realize the error of their ways.
It's damned near 2020. Computers at work rarely need much disk space. My Technology Administrator Policy forbade storing anything important on the local drive.
All that stuff was stored on servers where I could get my hands on it and apply best practices. How does huge desktop storage in an enterprise offset your environmental concerns?
Even at home, people need a good backup plan that includes EHD or cloud. It's insane to load up a local terabyte drive with data when that stuff can be offloaded to safe harbo
Backup != Archival (Score:2)
Just because you have something backed up doesn't mean you can take it off your device. Then you'd be back where you started: single point of failure.
As for it being almost 2020, laptop SSDs top off at 2TB before prices start going up *fast*. If you take 4K 60Hz video on your phone regularly as I do, that storage dwindles very quickly. I could shoot lower quality, but then I lose out on the ability to scale/crop and still target 1080p screens. And then there are the large datasets. Oh! The large datasets!
Th
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Why would it offset anything? Enterprise customers can buy their limited configurations, and in most cases, won't upgrade. That's fine. Even if only 1% of users subsequently upgrade, you're still almost certainly better off with upgradeable storage than with those 1% replacing their entire machine twice as often, because the extr
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RAM is the reason I'm looking to replace my 2012 NEC. CPU is fast enough, SSD has been upgraded, WiFi has been upgraded... But the RAM is stuck on 4GB. The Intel CPU doesn't support more.
Firefox or Chrome crushes it now. Fine by themselves but multitasking gets choppy on 4GB. VMs etc. are really pushing it beyond what it can cope with.
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Not being able to upgrade storage, however is about as close to a showstopper as you can get, because when you run out of disk space, that's a crisis that brings your computer usage to a screaming halt until you can either migrate things to an external drive or upgrade the storage in your machine.
If your machine doesn't allow you to upgrade the storage, that means it's a laptop or a tablet, which also means there will be more tempting reasons to upgrade your machine later anyway. Buy the storage you need, I say. Someone maintaining a video library needs a lot. Someone who keeps all their videos and photos on their phone and/or the cloud, and otherwise just uses their device for basic productivity, doesn't need much storage at all. And if you do find yourself in a pinch, external drives are easy to u
I wish (Score:4, Informative)
I appreciate some of the thin and light comes from doing away with bulky connectors, esp. SODIMM sockets, and the bulky 2.5" form-factor SSD, but M.2 SSDs aren't much larger than a postage stamp now days.
We're also in a throwaway PC market. The sentiment from the ignorant masses is "my Windows is slow, I need to buy a new computer", and off they go to the store without a clue what they're looking for to buy the prettiest, most blingy device they can find for the lowest price they can find it. There's little incentive for manufacturers to make functional, upgrade-able machines anymore because it's just not a buying decision that the uneducated masses even considers.
The trend didn't start with phones, but Apple certainly accelerated it with the cult of paying too much for an iPhone then throwing it out 6 months later because the new model has a few percent better battery life or some other pointless reason to upgrade.
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I think that's a bit unfair. The masses seem to favor laptops over desktops, and those wear out physically as often as they "get slow". Newer laptops also have much longer battery life, better screens, less bulk and weight, touchscreens, new wireless technologies, and better track-pads. You're not going to enjoy any of that by adding more RAM.
Surface Pro (Score:2)
It's the main thing keeping me from buying a Surface Pro. I love the device, but three things give me pause:
As a developer, the puny SSD storage sizes they provide is simply unacceptable, even if I do get the maxed up computer configuration necessary to get 1 TB of storage. I need about 2 TB to be comfortable. I'd like to have the option to replace it with a larger one if it becomes available, although SSD capacity growth seems to have stagnated. At the very least, I'd like to know I can replace it if it ha
I never buy pre-built (Score:2)
Maybe I'm a dinosaur, but I've always built my own machines because I don't like corners being cut in the primary tool of my trade. For me it's not so much the ability to upgrade as it is the ability to repair efficiently, which requires that the box will hold the repair parts that I keep on hand or can quickly acquire. I live way the hell out in the sticks where we get Next-Day Ain't service and the nearest relatively well stocked computer store is a hundred miles distant, so repairs requiring uncommon pie
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Maybe I'm a dinosaur, but I've always built my own machines because I don't like corners being cut in the primary tool of my trade.
And how do you go about self-assembling a DIY laptop?
Clevo?
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And how do you go about self-assembling a DIY laptop?
Clevo?
I don't. Being a dinosaur, my wrists rebel against small and flat keyboards with fire.
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Yes, max it to the gills (Score:2)
Ever since I rolled my own S-100 bus computers, the rule of thumb has been that memory is 1000 times as fast as storage, that you will always exceed your income (storage) even if it's 1000 pounds a year (projected usage), and if you can get some sweet memory or disk on sale, cram it full.
This has extended the operational life of my computers by at least doubling them.
Oh, and you can never have enough blades or 100 Gbps ports.
Meeeeeh (Score:3)
There was a time that I built my own PCs. Then I got into Macs, and in the last 12 years I've had 2 iMacs and 1 Mac Mini. The Mac Mini was bought in late 2012 and I replaced the spinning disc with a 2.5" SSD and upgraded the RAM while I was in there sometime last year. That's probably the longest I've ever had one computer in my whole life. 8 years is sort of ridiculous, but it still gets by just fine.
The reality is that I don't need the computing power that I used to. I have an iPad and an iPhone and a Switch. I don't do work on my computer anymore, and it's the rare website that really requires me to be at a desktop machine at all. I have a desktop machine at work, of course, but even these don't get upgraded piecemeal, though sometimes they'll swap out a failing drive or a bad stick of RAM. Upgrades happen as a unit.
It all sort of depends on what your use cases are. If you're a gamer, obviously you want an upgradeable machine. If you're just using it for boring-ass "grown-up" home computing (not to denigrate gamers or gaming; as a game developer, I hope you still like games through your adulthood) like spreadsheets or writing or some photo editing, just buy the best you can afford with a little headroom, and you'll probably be good to go for a really long time.
Upgrade (Score:2)
>"If you were going to buy a desktop or laptop computer, how important is it to be able to upgrade memory and storage after your purchase?"
Very, especially on desktop.
>"Personally, I like to keep computers 4-6 years"
For home? I buy high-end and use it typically for at least 5 years. Often upgrading RAM or storage if needed. And I end up with an overall better experience and lower cost doing so. My last desktop lasted 7 years and was still running fine (Linux); I was just finally lured by the Ryze
Desktop workstations and All-in-1s 100% important (Score:2)
In desktops, workstations and all-in-ones, there is no excuse for no upgradeable RAM and Stroage, as the space and power budget are there.
The crux of the matter is laptops. If you want thin/light, silent and long batter life, you must start to make compromises. LowPower-DDR4 can not use DIMMs (the spec itself from JDEC does not allow), it has to be soldered. If you combine the SATA/NVMe controller with the NAND-Flash controller (a-la T2 chip) you again save electricity, but you have to solder the NAND. If y
Re: Desktop workstations and All-in-1s 100% import (Score:2)
The Mac Pro has a T2 chip but also upgradable storage. Even if standard NVMe were off the table, nothing prevents Apple from making their own removable storage modules (like they did for 2012-2015 Retina MacBook Pros already).
They simply choose not to.
It's everything (Score:4, Informative)
Replaceable RAM and storage are absolute requirements in desktops and laptops.
I just bought a new computer (Score:2)
I have found that for my home stuff, if you don't buy the simplest machine, I want a whole new machine before I need to upgrade the memory.
But for a hard drive, I always want the option of a 2nd hard drive. If only because It lets me back up everything to the 2nd hard drive, then move the back up to the NEW computer when I replace it
Then use the new computer's hard drive as a back up. Raid 1 makes things simple.
Re: (Score:2)
But I only have 26 drive letters!
Ability to upgrade is... (Score:2)
Always build my own systems... (Score:2)
And each system has always had some room for upgrade-ability just by default. I would never buy a premade machine beyond a laptop and now I don't need a personal laptop with how good my phone is.
My problem is since I stopped buying new games that require cutting edge hardware, my system is kind of old but still works like a champ. I've nothing left to upgrade and the system completely meets all my needs.
I kind of want something must have to release but it will have to run on linux or win7 (runs some games p
Not very important to me (Score:2)
Upgradability isn't very important to me. If I find myself having to stick more RAM in my PC, I find myself wondering why in the hell I bought a 'short box' in the first place. So I don't so that anymore.
As for the HD, changing the HD isn't what I consider an upgrade (unless it's something radical) and I find I almost never ever do that, either.
I buy a decently outfitted box, use it for around 5 years, then I give it away and buy another new, decently outfitted box. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Switched to PC for it (Score:2)
I switched from Mac to PC for two reasons:
1) Keyboard
2) Upgradability
I already upgraded SSD once 1 year in.
Depends... (Score:2)
Vital (Score:4, Interesting)
The company I work for can issue me anything they want -- it's their money.
For home use, I won't buy anything that doesn't have upgradeable storage. Storage is a consumable, and not being able to replace a dead drive or upgrade to something larger as my needs increase and technology improves, is an absolutely deal breaker. Similar for video cards.
Memory less so for laptops, as I typically max out the memory to whatever the architecture allows. Desktop machines typically will take larger amounts of memory, and the ability to upgrade becomes more important.
But, unless you're doing something really high end like 120 fps 4k gaming, most current computers are good enough regarding processor speed and number of cores, so I'm ok with acquiring older machines for usually a pittance, and adding modern drives, memory and video cards.
Apple Macbook Pro - Not Upgradeable, and That's OK (Score:2)
I tend to keep my laptops for about 6 years, like the OP. But since I'm an Apple guy, the lack of upgradeability in Macbook Pros means I'm stuck with how it's made for the entire lifetime.
I usually bump the processor up and double the memory. My Early-2013 Macbook Pro Retina 15" has an Intel Core i7-4850HQ @ 2.30 GHz and 16GB of memory. Those were pretty decent specs for 6 years ago. I probably spent about $2500-2800. Over 6 years, that's $425-$470 per year. It still runs well, even when I don't close all o
How Important Is Upgradable Storage and Memory? (Score:2)
Extremely.
If I cannot expand memory or storage, IMHO, it's not a personal computer but an appliance.
Unchangeable storage is like unchangeable battery. (Score:2)
Buy the cheapest and upgrade it (Score:2)
simple test (Score:2)
if the memory, storage or CPU is direct soldered to the board then its a hard fail and ill pass.
Things are always moving (Score:2)
Desktops? Upgradablity is important. More RAM, Faster CPU, bigger fast HDs, I have done all these upgrades in the last 5 years.
laptop or desktop? (Score:2)
It really depends whether it is a laptop or a desktop.
When I buy a laptop, my primary concern is portability. It needs to be light, it needs to be slim, and it needs a screen and keyboard big enough that I can actually work on it. Everything else is secondary, that includes processor model, memory, disk, or upgrades. I assume laptops are disposable, they'll be gone in 4 years which is roughly warranty time. So I don't bother thinking about upgrades. I also don't buy them for myself, I purchase them through
Necessary, yes. (Score:2)
For starters: I pull the stock drive, substitue a fresh (and large, fast) one, and install linux (or whatever) from scratch.
Then, if there's a warranty issue, I can put the original drive back in and send it in. The drive can be installed in, or used outboard on, whatever I'm using to cover for the dead device - or to port the files to its successor and then be filed as an archival backup.
So a fast machine with an adequate power supply, downconfigured with a small disk, is just fine for me. No point in p
Fair priceing not apple mark up on fixed ram / sto (Score:2)
Fair pricing not apple mark up on fixed ram / storage.
mac pro should give you more choice for build in (Score:2)
mac pro should give you more choice for build in base storage. That is not really upgrade.
It's an pro workstation I may want $$$$ on gpu / cpu and not high end pci-e ssd's
I may want an raided boot device
I may want easy to swap in os disk.
Memory no, storage maybe, graphics yes (Score:2)
I rarely update memory, CPU or storage anymore on my builds (Gentoo workstations) because I buy enough to begin with. Those only get updated if they fail.
What I primarily update on builds these days is the video card and monitor(s), and the occasional odd peripheral. Most of my PC work is hardware/software engineering, and graphics cards are still advancing fast enough that two or three generations of video cards might cycle through one build. I've also moved from HD to 4K monitors. 10-bit color is now star
Not necessarily... (Score:2)
Of course it is a trade off - if you want that level of super thin portability, you know that upgrade options are nonexistent.
So when I ordered it, I did bite the bullet and paid more to have the processor upgrade, 8gb ram (was the maximum then) and a 500hb ssd. So yes a non insignificant outlay at the start, but it must be said, the machin
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting, I go the other way - internal storage MUST be replaceable, while memory should be (almost must). For two reasons
1) Storage is far more likely to fail than anything else - in fact regardless of technology it's a question of when, not if. And if it's not replaceable then it takes an otherwise perfectly good computer with it. Even if it's passed on to someone else by then, the excess toxic waste and artificially destroyed wealth are still on my conscience.
2) While computing demands and file siz