How interchangeable is hardware over time

[BRUUUCE]

I'm cleaning out my offices server room and there a ton of old units in there. It's primarily a mac office. Im recycling anything pre-intel. Is there any point in keeping the mid to late 2000s machines? They have a lot of of the white plastic imac's and white macbooks. Most of the office now runs 2010-2012 iMac/Macbooks.

HDDs: Size has grown too much over the decade to make them worth keeping
RAM: everything is/will be DDR3
logicboard: i assume these are different with size changes
sata cable: i notice these tend to fail on some macbook pros but are they interchangeable?

Im about to recycle/donate 50+ 2005-2009 mac machines and for some reason i feel guilty about it. Im primarily a PC guy, I was just wondering if im missing anything before i dump them.

 

[psingh01]

A sata cable is a sata cable. Would work on a mac/pc just the same. If anything you can have spares for when you may need it in the future. I'm talking about regular cables (maybe in the iMac?). If they look custom at all then I don't see the need to keep them.

The rest I don't see a reason to store. Ram will be faster/bigger capacities now. Likely wouldn't want to use it in a new system even if it was compatible (same reason as the HDD). Logic board change with each version of a model. A repair shop may want them but I wouldn't keep it seeing as your likely getting rid of all the laptops that could use it.

You can always ebay them. Someone will buy it cheap and find use out of it.

 

[rapicell]

50+ machines? Dang, I'd happily take a 2009 mac off your hands haha. But in terms of the topic, I pretty much agree with the person above. You could just ebay whatever and see if it sells. Tech changes quickly, but there's still people out there who like to upgrade older computers to make them last as long as possible

 

[BRUUUCE]

The 2009'ers are macbooks. All the spare iMacs are those plastic-y ones that came out around the intel switch. Thanks for making me feel less guilty guys!

 

[marzer]

I'm cleaning out my offices server room and there a ton of old units in there. It's primarily a mac office. Im recycling anything pre-intel. Is there any point in keeping the mid to late 2000s machines? They have a lot of of the white plastic imac's and white macbooks. Most of the office now runs 2010-2012 iMac/Macbooks.

HDDs: Size has grown too much over the decade to make them worth keeping
RAM: everything is/will be DDR3
logicboard: i assume these are different with size changes
sata cable: i notice these tend to fail on some macbook pros but are they interchangeable?

Im about to recycle/donate 50+ 2005-2009 mac machines and for some reason i feel guilty about it. Im primarily a PC guy, I was just wondering if im missing anything before i dump them.

Anything 2006+ has an intel architecture, making it convenient for reuse as a file/email/etc server (osx, win xp+ or linux). Anything newer than 2007 is still a capable Mt Lion machine.

 

[dan5.5]

The 2009'ers are macbooks. All the spare iMacs are those plastic-y ones that came out around the intel switch. Thanks for making me feel less guilty guys!

I would take some Mac of your hands. My grandparent have been looking to get a computer for Skype. That should do the trick. I will PayPal you to cover your time / shipping.

 

[Mike Valmike]

They have a lot of of the white plastic imac's and white macbooks. Im primarily a PC guy, I was just wondering if im missing anything before i dump them.

I'm surprised you don't resell them. They still have some value. I know a lot of gameroom/billiards type vendors like to pull the LCD panels out of plastic-era iMacs and use them as displays for arcade multi-game cabinets. It works because the iMac displays already have internal mounts.