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My current devices

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date: 2023-02-23 16:33:18

categories: hardware

firstPublishDate: 2020-08-23 20:36:35

In the 90s, I was keeping my computers for 2 years maximum, in the 2000s I was keeping them for 5 to 7 years and now I keep them until they fail (longer than 13 years).

I have a Compaq laptop from 2009 (32bit) that I don't use anymore because the network card fails when the computer is on for a few days. I keep it and plan to use it a temporary replacement machine.

The power supply on my Intel Core I7 980 desktop computer (2010) died in 2021, I bought a new one. The power supply died again in 2023, I bought a new one and it works fine again.

My backup server died in June 2021:

Acer laptop with 800mhz AMD cpu 2010, machine storing the backups for the other machines

In june 2021, I reinstalled the system and chose ZFS as filesystem. CPU fan died and the computer turned off, ZFS killed the machine. When booting the ZFS root pool and the data pool were not found. The data pool is in an external drive and so plugged it to another system and it failed to import the pool, so the data lost and hopefully there is a recent backup of the complete machine done with rdiff-backup.

Today's computers last for a long time, when one avoids bloated software.

Macbook air 2008 running debian, main driver
Intel Core i7 CPU 980 @ 3.33GHz, ATI graphic card, 24GB RAM 2010 running debian, supports 4k monitor!
Macbook air 2014 running macOS for app development
Dell xps 13 developer edition 2016 running debian with 4k screen
Intel nuc 2017 Core i7 32GB RAM, I don't keep this one on all the time because it gets too hot inside and I get bit flips in the RAM when I run heavy jobs
Mini-ITX computer 2021 (replacing the Acer laptop that died in june 2021)

I leave my computers on all the time (24h a day), so the macbook air has been on since february 2008 until now.

I have other 32bit computers (dell laptops) from the 2000s that I use occasionally, I keep them to temporary replace my current hardware in case of failure while I take time to choose new hardware.

I don't want to buy new hardware now since the DDR5 specification has just been finilized and computers supporting DDR5 will be on sale in 2022.

I will keep using this hardware until there is a major hardware failure and the device becomes unusable, of course I backup my data because it's pretty likely to loose data with this strategy.

The backup softwares I used were: rdiff-backup and borg backup.

As of today, I have the ZFS filesystem on all my systems to check if I have corrupt data in the main disk and the backup.

Current mobile devices:

ipad 2 - 2010, last iOS update in 2014. Amazingly iMessage, Facetime, Mail and web browsing still work. The battery is still ok, so I keep using it.
iphone 12 Pro Max - 2020, I use this for app development and main mobile
apple watch 3, I use this for app development
samsung galaxy s21 - 2021 (replacing the samsung galaxy a7 since the battery expanded in May 2021 - 2014, I use it for voice calls only)
planet computer gemini pda, I use this to be able to fix any problem any time any where with a small full keyboard and a terminal, mainly for unexpected problems in my servers occuring when I travel
pinephone

When buying new computers, I buy only computers running linux well. Linux allows me to keep my computers for a long time. If my macbook air from 2008 was running macOS, it wouldn't be usable today.

For mobile phones, I choose Apple iPhone but I would like to have a phone running linux.

I had a Nokia N900 running linux, as a phone it was not good, as a pocket computer the screen was too small and the keyboard was stiff, the planet computer gemini is better.

hashtags: #devices

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