In years past, if a computer was 3 years old it was on the way out. For a computer to still be in service after 5 years was strange… that it was still being used was impressive, that such a relic could still be useful.

It was especially harsh in the Mac world. Whereas you may still see someone today using a Pentium with Windows 98 and being happy about it, you just don’t see many Centris or Performa or Quadra still in circulation, except perhaps in a hermetically sealed off elementary school. But even these days that’s rare since most of those can’t exist in the modern world of the Internet (especially with a need for Flash).

But something changed a few years ago. Apple changed to Intel processors, and Moore’s Law appears to have tapered off. My MacBook Pro is 4 years old and performs well-enough. Oh sure would I love to upgrade? Yes. But what would I gain for that? I’d lose a FireWire 400 port. I use a USB port. I lose the express slot (but big deal, I’ve rarely used these). I’d gain an SD card slot, but that’s of minimal use to me. I’d gain 802.11n wireless, but that’s not a huge deal since I’m mostly wired up and when I use wireless it’s just short bursts of network need and it’s fast enough as it is. Faster processor and graphics, but for the most part what I have works… it’s sufficient for email, web, IM, whatever… only compiling would be better but there my bottleneck is the hard drive. Gaining the nifty new multi-touch trackpad would be cool.  But really… for dropping a couple thousand dollars I’m not gaining a HUGE advantage over what I presently have. The biggest thing I’d really want is more RAM since I’ve maxxed out the capabilities in this machine but again due to compiling code you just can never have too little RAM.

The one other upgrade needed? Hard drive. The drive in here I’ve outgrown. I’ve ordered a Hitachi Travelstar 7K500 7200 RPM model from Other World Computing. That’s about the best I’ll get these days: 500 MB of storage on a faster 7200 RPM drive. That upgrade right there should help overall system performance. Yes there are some slightly faster drives, slightly larger drives, but the Travelstar seemed the best bet in terms of price, performance, capacity, low noise, low vibration, lower power consumption… to me it was more important to have a cooler, smoother, quieter, less battery draining drive than say a Western Digital Scorpio Black (whose performance benchmarks were wicked awesome). That upgrade should be here today, and I’ll be down for a while while I do the drive transfer.

But I just find it interesting that while this MacBook Pro is showing its age, it still churns along respectably well. I don’t feel a need to upgrade now because there isn’t the obsolescence there once was. Oh sure, within a couple of years I’m probably going to replace it, but it feels good to not have to plan for a new machine every few years.