What is the average lifespan of an iMac?

jterlecki said:

When I needed a new battery for the Macbook Pro a couple of years ago, I was told by the Apple store that they no longer made that battery. I did find one after market.

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True…plenty of places to purchase a battery if Apple no longer carries them.

jterlecki said:

It seems that Apple has taken to make their hardware "obsolete" after about 5 or 6 years.

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Not exactly. Apple tends to classify older models as "vintage"…which pretty much means the Apple Store will no longer work on them. But this doesn'tt mean the computer itself is obsolete. Lots of places to go to get parts & repairs performed (authorized Apple repair locations & other computer repair professionals). Not to mention DIY.

And by the way…when a Dell, Samsung, HP, etc. computer has a problem…where do these folks go for repairs?? Where's the HP store located?? It's called do a DIY repair…or go to an independent repair professional.

jterlecki said:

When one of my iMacs blew a power supply in 2015, I was told that Apple had no parts. Furthermore, they advised me that the part was proprietary and there were no "specs" for substitution. Went to the recycler.

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Possibly true that Apple no longer carried the parts…but I can guarantee you there would have been no problems finding a replacement power supply on eBay, Powerbookmedic.com, and many other websites.

jterlecki said:

A few months later, the second iMac blew a video card. Same thing. Off to the recycler.

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Yes…this one might have been a different story. Some iMac models do have replaceable video cards. And if not…there is always the replace the logic board route. But these two options could have been too expensive to pursue.

jterlecki said:

During a recent visit to the Apple store, one of their technicians told me that he sells off his Mac stuff after about 3 years and buys new. The old stuff is still working but by doing this, he doesn't have to worry about any unrepairable catastrophic failures that create absolute nightmares.

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Sounds to me that this Apple technician simply likes to get a new computer every 3 years…and nothing to do with avoiding "catastrophic nightmares". Also remember…after 3 years most Apple computers have lost a big chunk of their value via depreciation. Thus a catastrophic nightmare isn't as bad as it sounds.

And in most cases…the catastrophic situations are usually caused by users themselves…via abuse (physical damage due to dropping a computer)…or liquid spills (again due to user error).

Be nice to your computer…and the majority of the time it will be nice to you!

- Nick

I have a late 2009 iMac 27" i7 20GB memory, 1TB disk and OS X El Capitan. I use it for managing and manipulating 30,000+ digital photographs with Aperture. I also run a WIN 10 VM under Parallels where I use, amongst other things, the MS Office suite, MS Project and MS Visio. It runs fine although I suspect I would get a little better performance by changing the clunky disk drive for an SSD. Tempting fate, I shall say it hasn't coughed since I've had it. I've never had to reload the OS (which seems to be a game others have to do) and the only time I took a screwdriver to it was to add more memory. I might have a look at the latest iMac when Apple deign to show to us mere mortals just to get a better screen and some latest technology, but it's OK.

Jesse Smith said:

I bought an iMac in the summer of 2008. It died late 2014. The video card kicked the bucket. I tried a Mac Store, and they couldn't fix it.

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Macintosh's don't have separate "video cards." The video circuitry is part of the motherboard. Just about no computer repair stores do what is known as a "component level repair" anymore. That means that no one will fix the discreet electronics on a board in your computer. If they offer to fix your computer, they will offer to replace the entire motherboard with a new one.

pigoo3 said:

And you really wouldn't have wanted Apple to fix it…since the repair would have been very expensive.

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Not necessarily. If you go to a brick and mortar Apple Store, they will often offer to replace your out-of-Applecare Mac's motherboard with a refurbished one at a drastically reduced cost from that of a brand-new one. This can be quite a nice deal. However, they don't usually have such motherboards for Mac's over a certain age.

ganhanugrah said:

I'm getting mixed answers all over the internet so I just want to know from people who've had experience with owning iMacs. Basically I want a computer that lasts and is fast (I don't care much about the ability to run the same amount of games that Windows PCs can)

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You are receiving mixed answers because individual users have different experiences. What you will find is that Macs tend to be wildly more reliable than other brands of personal computer *in their first three years of life*. (Hence all of the awards Apple has won for consumer satisfaction.) That's because Apple does more quality control checks on the assembly line than any other personal computer manufacturer. (I've been to their factory to see iMacs made. It is a marked contrast to the factory's of other personal computer manufacturers.)

The most common limiting factor in the life of a Macintosh, ironically, has nothing at all to do with a Macintosh specifically. Your Mac's hard drive, probably the same exact hard drive used by many other personal computer manufacturers (no personal computer manufacturer makes hard drives, they all purchase them from third parties), is the limiting factor.

A recent study showed that traditional rotating disk hard drives drastically drop in reliability after their third year in use.
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/170748-how-long-do-hard-drives-actually-live-for

However, a good number of those drives lasted for six or more years, and some for far longer.

More recent Macs have solid state hard drives (SSD's). Logically you would think that this sort of drive would last longer than a rotating disk hard drive (since there are no moving parts to wear out)...and you'd mostly be wrong.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/ssds-no-more-reliable-than-hard-drives/
However, a certain percentage of SSD's will last for a ridiculously long time...well over 20 years with normal usage. It's just that on average, they aren't any more reliable than rotating disk hard drives.

Other factors will influence how long your Mac lasts, and most of those factors have nothing to do with your Mac specifically being a Macintosh either. Things like ambient temperature, and the quality of the power coming in through the socket or your use of an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). High temperatures cause solder joints to crack, capacitors to blow, and is the natural enemy of magnetic media. In my experience folks who use UPS's have Macs that last all out of proportion to other Mac users. Dirty power (mostly small sags in power) slowly damages a personal computer's components over time.

So, bottom line, how long should you expect your Mac to last? I usually say that you should expect your Mac to outlive it's desirability. That is, most home users will want a new Mac (because of more desirable features and technology being available) after about 5 years, and business users will commonly want a new Mac after about three years. Most Mac users will find those years to be trouble-free years, at least more will than Windows users. In any case, you should hedge your bet by always having at least one meticulously updated backup, and maybe more than one if your data is very important.

You can usually push the number of years that you use your Mac, and your odds of getting away with it are fairly good. But doing so makes your backup plan more important, and it causes you to run the risk of your electronic documents outliving the availability of translators being available to migrate your documents to a new application, if necessary. (For example, folks who used to use the discontinued app AppleWorks, and who waited too long to get a new Mac, are finding it more and more difficult to find translators to allow them to open their old documents in modern applications. Since just about everyone who needed those translators have already purchased them, they are now becoming less and less available.)

Well said, Randy!

lclev said:

You can not pull a hard drive/SSD out of a Windows PC and more it to a new PC.

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Hmm, well I've done that before. Back when we switched from XP to 7 at work, I simply took the HDD out of the one tower and installed it as HDD2 on the new tower and transferred all our documents. Maybe you're referring to something else, though.

i have a 2010 iMac that i bought top shelf with ssd and 2tb spinner that is on the fritz. Im getting random purple squares showing up. it might be the video if so I'm planning on a new mac this year. I also have a 2008 mbp that i don't use that much but runs fine but with the os upgrades it has slowed down, but thats to be expected. Ive debated if i should throw and ssd in the mbp and but more time. yes the macs are more money than windows computers but they seem to hold performance for a longer time.

I have a late 2008 MBPro that's still functional though it is starting to show its age for some tasks I replaced a 500 GB spinning (mechanical) hard drive with an SSD. It cut my boot time almost in half though I don't remember the specific numbers. You will notice the speed difference most if you are in the habit of turning your Mac off rather than putting it to sleep.

BTW the mechanical drive I replaced was not the stock 5400 rpm drive. If you are still using that drive you'll likely notice an even bigger speed difference.

I know someone who had an iMac purchased in early 2007. Replaced just this month because of software upgrade issues, hardware was fine.

Thanks to all for your help