I have been thinking lately about how to describe (in English) why modern computers don’t feel a thousand times faster than the computers from a decade ago or more (at heart they are more like 10,000 times faster). So, why aren’t these new machines just instantaneous in responding to all of our requests?
To start with, many of us are hooked on these lovely graphic user interfaces which eat oodles of system resources and performance. Add to that all of the really nice little accessories (alarms, calendar features, spell checking, grammar checking, etc.) that we all love and load without a second thought. What? you didn’t load any of that stuff? Well, if you are running an Apple IOS or Microsoft Windows, then they are already there (part of the package).
Does it seem like your computer is real busy at times but not responding to you? You are probably correct, your computer is busy doing “background” tasks. It could be updating, synching a drive, or the cloud, or to another device or two. It could be running a security scan, indexing files, fixing file errors, or searching the web for advertising items to match your interests (inferred from your web activity, searches, etc.).
Much of this is “stuff” that users have little control over, some of it is stuff you can remove from your computer’s to-do lists, and still other stuff can be removed by a good anti-malware program (which may also eat up some performance and resources). Carefully choosing which tools to use and which ones to avoid can make a big difference. In the long run, modern computers are usable by a much wider range of users because of these conveniences (called bloat and other negative terms); but, the price we pay might be well worth noting the next time you wonder why your 6-year-old computer seems incredibly slow.
Another cause for poor performance can be an aging storage device. Yes, hard drives and even SSD’s suffer some performance reduction as they age. A 3-year-old hard drive is likely to show a 30-50% decline in performance compared to a new one of the same type while a 5-year-old SSD may show a 20% reduction in performance when compared to its self when it was new. At some point, you may wish to consider replacing your primary storage device simply to regain that performance level from when the device was new. This will also improve the odds of avoiding catastrophic storage failure or simple data loss.