Our company books are done on a Mac mini 2014 that was getting slower and slower for reasons that I mis-diagnosed. I thought it was out of space on the hard drive even though the computer said there was plenty. Then my MacBook started misbehaving too, slowing to a crawl with large web-pages (Facebook) and having trouble backing up. I feared a bug of some sort. Then, 3 weeks ago, the MacBook died. It would not boot up. When I turned it on, it showed a file folder with a question mark. It was dead, but now it’s back thanks to the folks at TechBench on Woodward Ave. I lost some data, but not that much.

As it turns out, the problem was not lack of space on the hard drive, but the hard drive itself. The spinning, magnetic disc that stores my data wore out. I should have seen the problem and replaced the hard drive, but I didn’t realize you could, or should. I replaced the hard drive with a solid state memory bigger than the original, and replaced the battery too. The computer is back, faster than before, and went on to replace the hard drive on the Mini too for good measure. That was 3 weeks ago and everything is working fine.

I could have bought two new computers, and I have decided to replace the 2011 desktop Mac at work, but I’m happy to have revivified these two machines. A new MacBook would have cost about $1200 while fixing this one cost should have cost $250 — $120 for the hard drive cost and $135 for the fellow who replaced it and recovered as much data as possible. Replacing the battery added another $150 with labor. I saved 2/3 the price of a new MacBook, got more hard disc, and my old programs run faster than before. Fixing up the Mini cost me $250 (no battery), and everything works fine. Because the processor is unchanged, I can still use my legacy programs (Word, pagemaker, photoshop, Quickbooks) and my music.

I’d considered trying to do the same with a 2011 Mini, but Miles at the service center said it was not worth it for a 2011 machine. I have an idea to remove the mechanism and turn this into an external, bootable drive, while transferring the data elsewhere. I’ve done this with old drives before.

In retrospect, I should have made more of an effort to backup data as soon as there was any indication that there was a problems. It was getting slower, and I needed to reboot every other day. As the disc drive wore out, data was being read less and less reliably. Data correction ate up cpu time. The fact is that I forgot I had a spinning disc-drive that could wear out. At least I learned something: hard drives wear out and need replacing. When things break, you might as well learn something. Another thing I learned is about Apple; the computers may cost more than PCs but they last. In the case of my lap book, 2014- 2021 so far.

Robert Buxbaum, March 8, 2021. This isn’t that high tech but it seems useful. As a high tech thought. It strikes me that, just as my laptop battery wore out in 7 years, an electric car battery is also likely to wear out in 7 years. Expect that to be a multi-thousand dollar replacement.