One of the questions I am often asked is when do you repair or upgrade and when do you replace? Sometimes the answer is clear and easy to explain; but, often this is a very difficult question resulting from complex criteria. Most of us have a lot invested in our desktop or laptop computers and minor damage simply does not rise to the seriousness level to bring on the need or desire to replace.
Some of the obvious reasons for replacement are age (a 10-year-old computer really is old), cost of repair and maintenance (replacing a $50 dollar part on a $700 computer is reasonable, replacing a $200 dollar part on a $250 computer is not reasonable). Then there is the concern for all the time and effort involved in “moving into” a computer. Generally, a new computer needs a lot of time and effort on someone’s part just to get it up to what the previous computer could do.
While, in the computer world, new is generally faster with more storage and should require less maintenance, it is not uncommon for new to also have left some important, to you, software behind (cannot install for a variety of reasons, or require a new license, and others) or a previously familiar software product behaves differently on the new computer and you have a learning requirement to get back being proficient again. Then there is a break-in period when new electronics can simply have factory testing missed flaws appear.
So, in many cases, there are reasons to consider repairing or upgrading instead of replacing. Each situation is different and the factors that drive the decision can change as time passes.
For many users, I recommend hard drive replacement when performance is the primary issue with a computer and that computer is more than 4 years old. With standard spinning hard drives, this is an age where they can really drop off in performance and reliability. Replacing that older hard drive with an SSD can really perk up a computer’s performance and its data storage reliability in one simple step. Let us not forget that backups continue to be important even with the newer drives as they can still fail.