That’s a question that I get probably 10 times a week. We all realize that has computers get older they slow down. I’m not sure it’s really a function of the computer slowing down or the software just getting bigger and more needy when it comes to performance.  Regardless, there comes a time when a machine feels slow, your disk space has gotten full, or there are other problems with your machine that make you wonder whether it’s time to replace your Mac. 

There are many factors that go into this decision. Some people just want to replace it to get the newest and fastest technology. But most people are trying to make a decision based upon whether the machine they have meets the needs that they have. So first off, let’s look at what some of the reasons that you might want to replace your computer are.

My computer is feeling slow

By far, this is the biggest reason that people start thinking about making a change. When we buy our computers, they run the current operating system the day, but every year, Apple puts out a new release of the operating system that adds new features of new functions. Many times these functions tied to functions that you might be using on your phone. So that makes you want to update your computer to the latest operating system each time it’s available. Well every time the operating system updates it typically gets a little bigger and uses a little more of the computers performance to make it really run well. After a period of time, you just run out of that surplus performance that that brand new machine you bought had.

Typically in the industry, many businesses replace computers in the 4 to 5 year range.  Now some replace much more often than others use them until they die, but that’s just kind of a general average. So I would say if your Mac is in the five year old or older range it might be time to consider a replacement.

But Mac users have something else to consider to. Apple just made a change to their processors on the Mac computers about a year and a half ago. Apple changed from Intel processors to Apple Silicon processors. Not typically a change like this would be very rocky for the user but Apple has taken all the rocks away, and paved with the best smoothest concrete you would ever find. The new Apple Silicon processors are absolutely amazing. They typically increase your performance by multiple times the speed of the current Intel machines. Now keep in mind your Intel machine might be 5 to 6 years old so the performance of the new processor is staggering.

Let me give you a simple example. Typically in the industry we use a piece of software called Mactracker to keep track of individual Macintosh models and what kind of hardware they were built with along with what the performance is. Let’s look at a machine from 2015. The chart below is the Mactracker information for a 2015 27 inch iMac.  If you take a look at the line listed as performance, the software tells us a single core in a multi course score for the processor. The numbers that make up the score are conglomerate performance of the different aspects of the computer.

But suffice to say the processor makes up a big portion of that. The single core score Is the speed at which one core of the processor can perform tasks. If it was a single core processor that would be the only number you got. But Macs for years have had multicore processor’s. For instance, this particular machine has a four or processor.  Newer machines, will have more cores. This particular machine has a multi course score of 2995.  If we compare the score of the other machines we get a relative performance difference between other hardware and this computer.

So let’s compare this, to Apple‘s new MacBook Pro 16 inch model. If we look at the same chart, in Mactracker, for Apple‘s new machine, you’ll notice that the multi core performance score is 12090 for the M1 pro model.  That’s four times the performance of your 2015 iMac. That kind of a performance difference in about 7 years it’s previously unheard of in the industry. Generally each year, performance of each new level of machine adds about 10% so you might expect about a 70% performance improvement from a seven-year-old machine. But with Apple‘s processor change, we’re looking at a 400% performance difference. That’s huge.

Not yes, we’re looking at a M1 pro processor not just the standard M1, but the standard in one processor has similar performance gains, so if you were looking for something lower in them Apple marketplace, you’re still gonna be looking at a performance increase of at least triple over this seven year old computer. If we’re to look up that chart for a M1 MacBook Air, which is basically Apple‘s entry-level machine these days, you’ll see a multi core performance score of 7387.  So comparing your old iMac, to a new entry-level machine still shows a 2.5 time performance increase. That’s still huge.

All that being said, a new Mac, it’s going to give you a tremendous performance increase over what you have. But performance is not the only reason we look for a new machine.

I’m out of disk space on my hard drive

Space. Space for all our stuff. It seems to just grow over time without even thinking about it. We need more and more space. But I would say, that in many cases what we really need is to just clean up the space we have. It’s kind of like your closet. If you continue to just add new things to your closet, and never get rid of anything, all of a sudden you’re out of closet space. You continue to stuff things in, but it just gets harder and harder to find a place for that new shirt that you just bought. Computers are the same way.

In later version of the operating system, under the Apple menu about this Mac, there’s a storage tab that  let us get an idea of what our storage is being used for.  You might take a look at that on your current machine. Typically, you’re going to find that storage is being used that you didn’t really realize. Pictures build up, old music preferences stay in your iTunes library, and old files that you may have used for work years ago, are still sitting on your hard drive. So regardless of whether you need more storage space or not, the first thing you need to do is clean up the space you have. I always recommend doing a good review and cleanup of your existing hard drive space, before migrating over to a new machine. There’s no reason to move all that stuff that you really don’t care about, and it keeps you from having to purchase more space on your new computer.

Using the same machine that we did in the performance section of this, these machines came with 1 TB or 3 TB drives. These were fusion drives which meant they were typical spinning drives, with a small solid-state Storage Drive To improve the performance. Since these drives we’re old standard spinning drives, they were fairly inexpensive. But these days, everything is solid-state storage. Solid state storage improve the performance of computer tremendously. It truly is the only way to go these days and Apple has acknowledged that I no longer selling machines with spinning drives.  But solid-state storage is more expensive.  So this is why cleaning up your space and determining just exactly how much space you need is the best idea to go with. You can always use an external drive to copy things off onto that you don’t necessarily need to have accessible every minute, or at least quickly accessible every minute. And that’s probably the best way to go. But the solid-state drive in the machine needs to be big enough to hold your applications, the operating system, and some of the basic files that you use on your machine. Typically I recommend a minimum of 512 GB. Many of Apple‘s machines come with that minimum but summer 256 GB so you do need to be aware of that if you’re getting ready to make a change.

I’m just ready for something new

Since the moderation of the pandemic, I’m hearing this is reason to get a new computer much more often. People of said at home, and worked on what they had for years now and they’re just ready to move forward. That’s a great reason to move up to a new Mac. But not everybody can do that. If you’re feeling like you’re just ready for something new Perhaps this is the best reason for making a new computer purchase.

But the other reason you may be looking for something new, might be do you want to move from a desktop computer to a laptop computer. This is a common thing I’m seeing these days. People want portability and want to be able to move around their home and use their computer anywhere they were at. So if you’re wanting to make a change because of changing the machine type you’re using, that’s a great reason to look at a new computer too.

Typically when a person calls me and tells me they want to know if it’s time to get a new machine, I look at these reasons I’ve described above and discuss that with them sometimes in detail. But there is one other reason. If your machine is getting older, the odds of it failing are getting greater. If it fails, replacing parts may be expensive if they’re even available any longer. So much of today’s computers is all included on the system board so one thing going wrong on the system board means a complete replacement. It’s always better to make a conscious decision to replace an older machine before it fails then to be forced into a decision if a failure occurs.

So let’s get back to the question, “Is the time to replace my Mac?”  The short answer is maybe. I would recommend if your machine is over five years old, it’s beginning to slow down and feel sluggish to you, or you’re looking for something different, this may be the perfect time. Machine performance is greater than it’s ever been, and the difference you’ll see from what you have to what you buy will truly be staggering. 

I’m always happy to help people talk through the decision making process of whether it’s time to replace, and what to replace their machine with. It’s much better to get some input upfront, then to make a decision that you’re going to be sorry about later.