When should you replace aging equipment?

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FlyingPete

112 posts

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#233514 19-Apr-2018 09:36

So, in corporate IT land most people seem to work the useful age IT assets is between 3-5 years. When they get older than that they replace them. There seem to be many reasons for this and I do know organisations that completely ignore this and have to resort to TradeMe and eBay for spares when things break.

What about at home? I tend to upgrade my laptop every three years or so just to keep up with latest and I push it quite hard (18 months into current one and already wishing I spend a wee bit more on it!). But then there are things that performance is less of an issue. When would you replace a router or a switch if it supports all current standards? What about a NAS?

I started asking myself this recently especially around my Synology NAS a DS1315+ which is now around 5 years old. It still works and does what it is supposed to do, a bit more performance wouldn't be unwelcome. However if it failed it would be a serious pain in the neck. Would a new unit have less chance of failure, is it really worth replacing just to avoid that risk?

davidcole

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#1999192 19-Apr-2018 10:53

What's the likelyhood of the NAS dying, or the drives? And could you afford to just have an empty NAS frame hanging around the house not in use?

Only you can really answer that.

I'm not sure I'd replace it just because....I'd kinda need an indication something is wrong....or a fallback position, ie can the drives be hooked to a PC to pull the data off? As thats a conderation I've made in staying with windows running drivebender, instead of running a raid 5 system. At the end of the day, I know the drives are just plain NTFS just in a weird folder structure....but I can push a drive into an external enclosure and pull the data off.

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FlyingPete

112 posts

Master Geek

#1999221 19-Apr-2018 11:32

Not sure in likely hood on failure, seems most stuff if it is going to fail they fail before 5 years old, so odds are its probably in for the long haul now.

Drive formats are an issue if trying to recover stuff off drives, that has pushed me back to Windows based file servers in the past after not having the tools or expertise to repair EXT volumes from failed cheap NAS units. I have mitigated critical data to a second 2-drive unit that is supposed to be offsite.

Going to check out drive bender out of curiosity....

davidcole

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#1999224 19-Apr-2018 11:35

FlyingPete:

Not sure in likely hood on failure, seems most stuff if it is going to fail they fail before 5 years old, so odds are its probably in for the long haul now.

Drive formats are an issue if trying to recover stuff off drives, that has pushed me back to Windows based file servers in the past after not having the tools or expertise to repair EXT volumes from failed cheap NAS units. I have mitigated critical data to a second 2-drive unit that is supposed to be offsite.

Going to check out drive bender out of curiosity....

Similar concept that has now been built into windows called storage spaces....but I looked at that with Windows 2012, and found it overly complicated, and you lost visibility of the drives, ie names etc. I name all mine externally and internally with the serial number, so when one is failing, I can pull it out (I haven't got drive lights on each one, which is how they get around it in a proper commercial raid).

ANglEAUT

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#1999289 19-Apr-2018 13:04

davidcole: ... I'm not sure I'd replace it just because....I'd kinda need an indication something is wrong....

Fully agree. Another thread had a comment about a Toyota Corolla having 310 000km on the clock and it was still doing a good job. If it ain't broke, why fix it?

Not all machines are replaced in the 3-5 year time frame. Around me there are many machines with an install date between 2011 and 2013. Often, the business replaces the equipment so quickly because than can afford to, they realise staff are more efficient / productive on faster machines and there are less support costs.

Not all homes can afford to replace the equipment. They also can't depreciate the asset and for some, it's not even that important a piece of equipment.

For my home I replace the equipment when it get's annoying to maintain (in what ever fashion) and before it gets a frustration. If I have to fiddle with the switch every week because something lost comms, it's time to replace the switch. Software updates for the switch on a monthly basis is not frustrating enough to find another solution. If the switch can only do 100Mbps and I want 1Gbps, I'll see if I can reporpuse the switch in a lower use case scenario.

As to losing the data on your NAS, how often and what % of data does actually change? Photos & CD images don't change and can easily be copied to CD/DVD as a permanent backup or even to Amazon Glacier. The files will be available in case of a NAS failure, just not immediately.

Please keep this GZ community vibrant by contributing in a constructive & respectful manner.

deadlyllama

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#1999321 19-Apr-2018 14:04

The boring questions to ask are basically around disaster recovery. This is independent of the life of the equipment -- new things can fail too!

What happens if it goes bang? Do you have backups? Have you ever tried restoring from them?

Do you have work that needs doing which can't be done until the NAS is replaced and the backups are restored? How much time will this take and how much will it cost?

Remember if you're buying second hand gear that you may not be able to get what you want at short notice, which is a problem if you need things working at short notice.

How much money can you realistically afford to spend, per year, on this stuff -- what's your budget?

I currently do offsite backups to a raspberry pi in a different city (friend's office) with some external hard drives plugged into it. I'm trusting that it won't fail at the same time as things in my house.

1101

3083 posts

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#1999405 19-Apr-2018 16:07

If only corporates replaced systems after 5 years . Try 8,10years and longer , from what Ive seen.

There's never any guarantee new hardware (or software) will be reliable or bug free , its a chance you take when replacing perfectly working hardware

I replace my home IT gear when its too obsolete , far too old or failing.
I only replaced my XP home laptop as the one app I needed it for no longer is XP compatable
I still have 2 XP PC's at home, just as media systems & only get replaced if they die
My home Windows7 PC gets parts upgraded or replaced as needed .

NAS : you should be backing that up regardless ( when practical ) . If it dies should be able to go to its backup to access files
There are options to mirror NAS's or backup NAS dayly to USB hard drive

timmmay

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#1999419 19-Apr-2018 17:00

I replace home equipment when it fails or gives signs of failure. I have multiple backups though, and if I'm down for a week while I replace something I'll just use my work laptop so it's not really a problem.

One exception is hard drives, which tend to get replaced when they're too small. However, now my drives are all 4-6TB I think that will happen less often. I have the internal drives using Windows storage spaces in mirror configuration, which I've found simple to set up and very reliable. If it tells me there's a problem with a drive I'd work out which it is and replace it. I use HGST as BackBlaze says they're the most reliable.

davidcole

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#1999435 19-Apr-2018 17:26

I replace a hard drive as soon as S.M.A.R.T drops from excellent to ok.
Quite often though the server has had an unexplained reboot first.

pillmonsta

73 posts

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#2004410 29-Apr-2018 09:48

The 3-5 yr lifespan generally applies to hard drives, I recommend my own SMB clients replace drives after 5yrs, to be safe. Most other components will likely last 10 years or more.

I've got P3 and P4 systems floating round thats simply outlived thier useful life. My own rig is a 4.7Ghz Vishera from 2012.....still fast enough for me. :)