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Can a MacBook last for 10 years?

Hieveryone

Hieveryone

macrumors 603
Original poster
Apr 11, 2014
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2,347
USA
I bought a late 2013 rMBP 2.6/8/256 and I really love it. I hope to be using it for a very long time.

Any users out there who are using older MacBooks without any problems or major slow-downs?
 
I have a mid-2010 13" MacBook Pro bought in April 2010 that is still going strong 6+ years later.

I'm thinking I can get at least two more years out of it.

A friend has an old white -iBook- laptop (with upgraded hard drive) that still runs fine for him.
 
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I had a mid-2009 MBP that was working fine before it was stolen last summer. I had already purchased an SSD to put in it and expected it to last at least another two years, which would have brought it up to 8. At that point I would have been flirting with Apple dropping OS support for it, though, and I would have needed to buy a new machine at that point.
 
A quality machine, any quality machine should last ten years.

Electronic equipment is always a roll of the dice to some degree. Portable devices like a notebook are inherently more prone to wear and tear for obvious reasons. They are also more compact, so component breakdown due to heat is more of a concern. You can improve your chances by taking care of the machine and shutting it down or putting it to sleep when not in use. I have Thinkpad T61 that is 9 years old now. This machine is still running smooth on Windows 7 and faster than it has ever been thanks to an SSD upgrade. I expect to get a few more years out of it as a media player. We also have a very cheap Dell that two years behind that, still going strong. Probably will for a couple more years.
 
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I have a mid 2009 MBP C2D 15" the only thing I ever did to it was upgrade the RAM, the computer is still in great condition but its really slow sometimes, I still use it with no other issues other than the slowness. But I am waiting for a skylake upgrade to replace it, so in my experience I would say around 7-8 years is the expectation as long as you take care of it and have no accidents.
 
I'm replying on my mid-2009 MBP right now. I've had to replace the battery and I installed an SSD, but it still runs really well. I'd like to buy a replacement just for the upgrade in performance, but so far Apple hasn't given me a compelling reason to spend any money.
 
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I think they support security updates for about two major releases after, so this might be last year of mavericks security update support.
 
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My dad is using my 2006 Macbook (the first white one that came out). It's definitely showing it's age though, the fan goes nuts and it's very slow-but he only uses it to watch workout videos online in their rec room. I'm currently using a 2010 MBP which I'll be handing over to him once the new rMBPs are (FINALLY!) released.
 
Sure, maybe.

But 10 years ago we were running with 512MB to 1 GB of RAM on a lot of machines. The fastest external ports we had were USB2. Storage was SATA1 and 99% were spinning disks. Drives were about 80-100 GB in size. CPUs were single core, dual was still rare for a desktop. Try running a single core machine with half a gig of memory today and that's the sort of experience you can expect with a mid-range 2016 machine in 2026.

Double it to 1 gig for to see what a high end machine of today will be like in 2026.

If not worse, as there are a few game-changing things on the horizon like high bandwidth memory and Xpoint storage/memory hybrid from intel.


So yeah, even if the hardware survives....

Multiply today's standard memory by 8-16 and storage by 5-10 (based on a conservative measurement of the growth rate RAM and storage has grown at over the past 20-25 years), in 2026 you'll be looking at low/mid-spec machines with ~64-128 GB of RAM and ~10 TB of solid state by 2026 at a guess. 2026 software will be written with those specs in mind.
 
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iMacDragon said:
I think they support security updates for about two major releases after, so this might be last year of mavericks security update support.
Click to expand...

Yes Mountain Lion was release in July 2012 and they stopped updating August 2015.

This gives us 3 years, so this will likely be the last year :(

So basically after this we will have to update OS, which means my late 2013 rMBP will become slow.

Am I right?

@throAU @etceteraism @iMacDragon @matt_on_a_mtn @bent christian @Smoothie @bigjnyc @TMRJIJ @Coldmode @tubeexperience
 
Hieveryone said:
Yes Mountain Lion was release in July 2012 and they stopped updating August 2015.

This gives us 3 years, so this will likely be the last year :(

So basically after this we will have to update OS, which means my late 2013 rMBP will become slow.

Am I right?

@throAU @etceteraism @iMacDragon @matt_on_a_mtn @bent christian @Smoothie @bigjnyc @TMRJIJ @Coldmode @tubeexperience
Click to expand...

I was using a 2013 iMac and 2013 MBA up until a couple weeks ago. Both were on El Capitan and it ran just fine. I wouldn't worry about updating your 2013 at all.
 
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I have a late 2013 rMBP and it's MUCH slower than it was when it came out. It's already time for an upgrade. A Mac or any computer lasting for 10 years nowadays isn't really optimal. You could make it last but it won't perform very well. That's how they design laptops and software, they aren't meant to be great for that long.

The thing is that my MBP is pretty good but when I use the latest ones, they're so much faster than mine. It doesn't make sense to sit here waiting for things to load every single day. If you never use another system, you'll never really know though.
 
If you are booting from an SSD, you are good. We have a 2013 13" rMBP that runs El Cap fine. It's a very snappy machine.
 
Hieveryone said:
Yes Mountain Lion was release in July 2012 and they stopped updating August 2015.

This gives us 3 years, so this will likely be the last year :(

So basically after this we will have to update OS, which means my late 2013 rMBP will become slow.

Am I right?
Click to expand...

I personally think you are going about this the wrong way. You don't want to stay on Mavericks just because it happens to be ok. What you want to do is successfully find the last version of OS X that works smoothly on your current machine. This isn't iOS. You can roll back if you don't like an OSX upgrade.

If I was you I would (cautiously with a backup) update to each new OS. Once I found an OS that noticeably affected performance I would roll back to the previous one (if you have a good backup that should be possible). And ONLY THEN would I stop upgrading my computer and try to keep going as long as I could until security updates stopped. I'm sure your computer will run just fine on El Capitan. Plenty on macrumors are running it with older and less powerful computers than yours.
 
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Saturn1217 said:
I personally think you are going about this the wrong way. You don't want to stay on Mavericks just because it happens to be ok. What you want to do is successfully find the last version of OS X that works smoothly on your current machine. This isn't iOS. You can roll back if you don't like an OSX upgrade.

If I was you I would (cautiously with a backup) update to each new OS. Once I found an OS that noticeably affected performance I would roll back to the previous one (if you have a good backup that should be possible). And ONLY THEN would I stop upgrading my computer and try to keep going as long as I could until security updates stopped. I'm sure your computer will run just fine on El Capitan. Plenty on macrumors are running it with older and less powerful computers than yours.
Click to expand...

How do you go back to Mavericks after updating to El Cap?
 
If you are very very lucky. High-performance electronic circuits are constantly deteriorating. Battery and storage are the first to go, but they are replaceable. I'd say that about half of high-quality machines should survive 6 years or so but I wouldn't bet my money on ten.
 
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