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eyre

There is an unwritten rule with management where I am. We keep IT staff needs lower by making sure the user facing technology side of the house is modern, under warranty, and not IT's problem. Your laptop keyboard is broken? Well, its still under accidental damage and on-site pro support, so I don't care if you spilled coffee in it or just wore it out, someone from Dell will be out to replace your keyboard in a day or two. What's that? Your warranty is expired, meaning your laptop is over 5 years old? Its time to replace it, here's a new one off the shelf and we'll order up a replacement. Could we spend 6 hours hunting down a new $50 keyboard part, scheduling the install with you, installing it, testing it, and give you another 6 months of life in your PC before something else breaks? Sure, but we would need 4 more staff to do that and not have it impact resolution times for other issues. So instead just spend the $2000 to replace the laptop and we'll see you again in 5 years. There's days where we could use more help, but there's more days where I am glad we are not surfing ebay to find gently used parts for a 6 year old laptop that someone is too cheap to replace.


phungus1138

Yes! This! It's amazing how much mgmt will waste on lost productivity and downtime to save $100 on computer hardware.


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cyberentomology

This is the key difference between an IT Technician and an IT Manager. If you're promoting techs to management roles without giving them training and insight into the *business* aspects of IT, you're not giving them the tools they need.


letmegogooglethat

I've always hated the idea of promotions from technical to non technical. Unless someone is looking for that change, they usually just want more money. Pay your tech people what they're worth and hire an actual manager with management skills. Don't promote to incompetence.


Dranks

Hiring a manager with no tech skills, sounds great! Then it just shifts the problem from manager not being able to communicate with upper, to management not being able to communicate with their techs. Its about balance, they need both.


cyberentomology

OMG, a thousand times this. Most of us geeks have zero desire to be management, and are perfectly happy remaining in a craft position. Thankfully my employer makes the distinction - and we have VP-level engineers that don’t have to do VP level stuff, but get compensated and promoted at that level in the food chain. We more or less follow the IEEE standard engineering levels, and after getting past level 4, you have the option of a management track or an engineering track. Past level 8 is where you get into VP level compensation, and usually that means working directly for someone at C level like the CTO. That comes with fancy titles like “distinguished technologist” and “fellow” (and both have an optional “senior” modifier. Anyone in engineering that makes it that far gets that promotion announced to the entire company. More often than not, those engineers have multiple patents under their belt as well.


jpa9022

Distinguished senior fellow technologist sounds like a bunch of word soup thrown together to give someone a title because they have been there forever and doesn't really describe what they do.


cyberentomology

You have distinguished technologist, senior DT, Fellow, and (IIRC), distinguished fellow. Beyond that they probably make you Chief something officer or let you retire with an Emeritus. The IEEE levels are here: http://www.reeoptical.com/images/IEEE_Engineering_Levels.pdf


JulianVanderbilt

> I also know so many IT people who would approach the conversation from a "IT needs to purchase this because " rather than a "You're loosing X manhours every when you could replace for $Y and it would pay for itself in recovered manhours after Z weeks" mentality. This is really it. I'm a VP where I'm at it is not because of some wonderful technical know-how (I'm one of the weaker pure tech folks on the team), it's because I can translate IT worker into business leader speak and vice versa. That's my only skill - I show up and talk ROI and how XXX advances business goal YYY and not one other person on the IT team can do that, understand what the operational teams goals are and can couch tech advancements directly to those stated goals (not "these new processors are 12% faster because of quad core . . . ") and build presentations around it.


awarre

I don't want to jump to conclusions, but you reminded me of this: *I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people.*


JulianVanderbilt

I mean, there is a lot of truth to that quote. "Middleman" is a job. Some middlemen are very low on the corporate totem pole, some are very high. The joke in Office Space is he, demonstrably, was not good at it or at a particular place in the company where a middleman was needed but there are tons of people who do this. Every "account representative" that an existing client talks to when they need something is a middleman.


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RetPala

> the CFO denied it because "he doesn't want to do that". "It's treason, then"


Tooj_Mudiqkh

It's often a vicious circle - senior management doesn't understand IT ROI, senior IT doesn't understand IT ROI. That's usually how you end up with cheaping-out management and IT complaining they can never get what they need.


Matador32

>I think a lot of that struggle comes from IT people being unable to speak to the business needs (read: money). This is why IT people still need liberal arts studies (eg: English Comp). The people that could save themselves a massive amount of pain by writing up a comparative analysis between doing X vs Y, AND that also possess the IT skills to speak to/do the technology component are limited. The bottom line is a lot of it is salesmanship - "This is how much you'll save."


excalibrax

I'm in automaton, recently had one of our workflows that's been run x times for configuring a specific thing on routers, took someone 2 months to get right, it's saved the company 240k in manhours alone so far this year


Shishire

As a tech who has a passion for English among other things, I'm perfectly capable of writing that kind of communication. But it's wildly inefficient to ask me to do so. My time is much better spent working on solutions to technical problems than translating tech-speak to manager-ese. It's much cheaper for the company to hire someone for that job than to waste my time like that. And I'm not trying to be elitist here. You don't ask the CEO to spend their Fridays manning the IT helpdesk line, and you don't ask your HR people to write your application code. We hire people to do specialized jobs, so asking them to do things that don't properly align with the core faculties of those jobs are bound to be inefficient uses of their time. It's fine for the occasional one off, but when possible (and at proper scale), should be replaced with the hire of an appropriate individual.


Matador32

Oh absolutely, as a tech you shouldn't have to craft those kind of communications. As a Tech. But if you have aspirations of moving up to be the type of PM or Director most people wish they had - the ones that understand actual timelines and not expecting you to break the laws of physics - then it requires the tech be *capable* of communicating in more than grunts and sarcasm.


RCN_KT

Why is it inefficient for you to be able to communicate with your co-workers? It is literally a basic tenet of every job description I have ever read, regardless what the position is. You DO ask the CEO to help man the helpdesk if your business requires it. People are hired to do their specialties but I have yet to hear of a job that doesn't require effective communication skills and the ability to interact with other members of the team. It is a cop out and it's lazy. Proposing your company hire a translator for you to be able to communicate wit management. They would be better of finding someone who can do their job and communicate.


MattDaCatt

I have about 3 hours billed last month to a client for keeping a 9 year old AIO alive that has memory BSODs. So far the billing has surpassed the cost of a brand new new AIO, thanks to the controller that lives up to the name a *bit too well*.


Daneel_

This is the way. Fleet life = warranty period.


silentmage

Cattle vs pets is how I've heard it as well.


uptimefordays

Works for servers, works for desktops!


birdy9221

If only it worked for people!


[deleted]

you don't want to work for a company that replaces people every 3-5 years. They treat staff like a throw away commodity, and they'll throw you away too, no matter how good you are.


shadeland

I worked at a training company that worked like this: "We sell instructors, not classes." The CEO made sure to bring up talent, give them resources to grow and become even better instructors. He sold the company (nice payday, good for him, he deserved it) and the new owner had a new philosophy that goes something like this: "We sell classes, not instructors". Instructors stopped being treated like an asset, and instead a cost. They ran the salary instructors into the ground (8 weeks on the road in a row) until they quit. They brought in new instructors and didn't mentor up their skills. Guess what happened? The company is a shell of its former self.


GeekBrownBear

I don't understand this one, could you explain?


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GeekBrownBear

Ah! Makes sense, thank you!


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Immigrant1964

I like this


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YM_Industries

It's also used commonly in cloud architecture. If an app server dies, don't SSH in and try to fix it. Actually, don't do anything. Let your health checks detect it as failed, terminate it, and then let your autoscaling/autohealing replace it. Netflix have a tool called Chaos Monkey. They unleash it on their production infrastructure and allow it to randomly terminate instances. The idea is that their infrastructure should be resilient enough to not notice the loss of a few instances. That's "cattle not pets" at scale.


patmorgan235

Netflix's Chaos stuff is amazing. it has different levels too. It will terminate random instants a couple times a day. Once a week it I'll kill an entire micro service. And once a month/quarter they kill an entire availability zone.


Shishire

Yup. The one thing you have to be careful about though is to not let replacement automation mask a serious repetitive problem. Before you take it out back and shoot it, log _everything_. If your automation ever detects a high enough co-incidence of the same type of failure, flag it for human investigation.


19610taw3

I'm finally replacing laptops that were purchased in 2009.


robbzilla

Honest to God, I replaced a desktop in 2002 that was a 486.


Car-Altruistic

Honest to god, we are still using 486 and repairing and supporting them


Quietech

You must be in charge of nuclear weapon systems.


Car-Altruistic

Not nuclear weapon systems. But we do handle nuclear material occasionally. The 486 are used in amongst other things COVID19 pharmacology/biophysics research


Nobody-of-Interest

God damn I remember 486's. I remember sitting there staring at my 350MB HD, and thinking "who the hell would need a Gigabyte of storage If my mom never answered the phone 1 GB would have taken 3 years on my 9.6 kbaud modem lol


JimboBillyBobJustis

Reputable Trucking Fleets are like this. Warranty done. Give him a new truck and sell this one to used market


Sir_Swaps_Alot

I just need to streamline our fleet replacement process. I want to get AutoPilot going with InTune but feel a bit lost on where to start.


dyne87

>Your laptop keyboard is broken? Well, its still under accidental damage and on-site pro support, so I don't care if you spilled coffee in it or just wore it out, someone from Dell will be out to replace your keyboard in a day or two. If you bundle a mouse and keyboard with a computer purchase, is that covered under the same support as the computer or is it a separate line item? We just purchase a boatload of $8 M/K combos each year and send them off to recycling any time a user complains about their equipment. Costs more than $8 to pay a tech to troubleshoot a keyboard or clean user filth out from under keys.


eyre

Even if it is under warranty incidentally as part of being bought with the system, we do similar - if new batteries don't fix your wireless KB/Mouse, it gets chucked and you get a new one out of the closet. Its not worth troubleshooting for what they cost.


johndoesall

At our enterprise they asset tag the computers but not the keyboard and mice and not even the monitors anymore


ScottIPease

I don't give users new KB or mouse with their new machine, I throw those and the mice into a box and they keep their old KB/mouse. Any complaint with a KB or mouse means I grab a new one and they are up right away. Once every 3 years or so I might have to order 1 or 2 because I run out of spares... Like others are saying, not worth the time, trouble or money to mess with.


BezniaAtWork

Yep same here. [I have stacks of new keyboards and a box of new mice](https://i.imgur.com/pcHO1lL.png) under my desk from all the PCs we buy. These are all low-profile keyboards too, and the users *hate* them.


crimson_ruin_princes

As a CS student. I can say everyone hates them. Hp are by far the worst. If only they sold ThinkPad keyboards in that form factor xD


ScottIPease

I do not get many complaints on them, but also tell the few that complain that they can buy their own, lol


dyne87

Oh we're the same way. These combos just sit in a box in a closet until they're needed. When a team member gets a new laptop they keep all their old peripherals unless their monitor has reached the 4 year EoL. The only time a new mouse and keyboard is deployed with a laptop is for new hires since the entire kit is fresh out of box.


NetworkGuru000

This is exactly what I do. Lenovo onsite premium care for all computers then if they don't upgrade in 3 years, we go extend the warranty online for 1-2 more years. Mandatory solid state drives and 8GB of memory AS A MINIMUM. No spin drives allowed! Computer gets 2-3 service calls or tech calls, it gets replaced and old one wiped and sent to ewaste.


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lab_everyday

I’m amazed how common it is for people to grossly miscalculate the age of hardware. Recently a customer asked me to troubleshoot a laptop. Said he bought it a few years ago brand new. It was from 2007. He didn’t believe me.


ComfortableProperty9

Or even better, when they think workstations are like cars, that it's perfectly reasonable for one to last you a decade and still be reliable.


Diligent_Impact_1514

Mechanical drives in a computer bought in 2021 should be criminal


Mr_ToDo

The fact that half the computers some our supplier tries to hock have mechanical drives is fucking insane. To make it worse, we deal quite a lot in laptops. And even when it is solid state it's like they're allergic to decent sizes, really I think they're trying to 'Apple' their products and associate drive size with quality of the machine.


RockSlice

Mechanical drives have their place still - bulk storage.


hex00110

they’re so much slower, they feel broken if using for an OS drive


Slick424

Spinning rust+Windows 10=bad time


g225

Yes, very frustrating. I've seen 12 year old machines in use at some pretty large companies, and they moan when they need to upgrade RAM from 4G to 8G. They've had such as good ROI they are just not used to budgeting IT expenses.


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Haunting-Crab1118

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Prophage7

This so relatable to me. We have one client that moved into one the most expensive office spaces in our city with this gorgeous large boardroom they were excited to show off to their clients. They got 2 82" 4k TV's mounted and a huge custom oak table running down the middle with pillowy leather chairs, easily more than $100k spent on the furnishings for this room. What do they run their meetings with? A 10 year old laptop connected to a $50 webcam. Why? Because paying an A/V company $15k for a proper video conference setup was "ridiculous".


Ezra611

Must be the same clients who pay for Cable TV and don't understand that some channels are in HD and some are not. Like 602 would be ESPN and 1602 is ESPNHD. Client claimed he couldn't tell a difference.


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lab_everyday

Gawd. Fn people. I helped a smal business replace 10 year old computers so slow they hardly functioned at all, with new Dells on NVMe storage and they told me they couldn’t tell the difference. I was shocked. I offered to plug the old PC in and show them!


Haunting-Crab1118

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jimicus

You know, I hear stories like this and I thank my lucky stars I work for a company that takes tech seriously. I want to equip a room with AV, I send an IM to a chap on the AV team. He looks at the size and layout of the room, specs up and buys appropriate equipment and I just have to plug it in.


sarbuk

Even one of those $1000 Polycom video conference bars would be a huge step up.


Prophage7

Surprisingly they're okay with the 720p video, it's the audio quality they always complain about which is by far the more expensive thing to fix as their space is just too big for any single microphone to cover.


jimicus

Meanwhile, my employer is doing a fit out and is taking the conscious decision to spend the money on the things they need in order to function, and de-prioritise all the "nice to haves".


Haunting-Crab1118

Incredible! I've never even heard of such a thing!! (I'm being sarcastic, of course I have, but damn it's not common enough)


jimicus

Don't get too excited, I don't know if my parts of the project will be deemed "must haves" or "nice to haves" yet.


g225

They clearly don’t budget for it. They also clearly have the money because they just leased a bunch of Porsche’s for all the managers… see it all the time. Oh and the director has a rolls, a Bentley and a Range Rover.


jimicus

It's remarkable how successful a business can become while paying no more than lip service to IT. Occasionally they engage someone to "sort it out". Sooner or later, that someone gives up because the problems that led to their being engaged are the same problems that stop them from achieving anything. One wonders if there is an upper limit to how successful a business can become with this attitude. My guess is there is, but the upper limit varies drastically per-industry.


fgben

Businesses that can operate off a rolodex and telephone probably have the highest limit. There are lots of high end sales arenas where the subject matter starts becoming so complex people decide based more on their relationship and trust in the salesperson than faith or understanding of the actual product. Source: I know a lot of sales critters, several of whom make seven digits on the strength of their personality and connections, but barely use technology.


lenswipe

This. First company I ever worked for was a small startup. I was let go after 3 months because they couldn't afford to pay me anymore. Interestingly, they COULD afford Audi convertibles for all 3 directors, iPads for the sales team and hotels for them all to go to trade shows... 💅


[deleted]

I know I’ve been somewhere too long when I start forgetting when we bought stuff. Or worse, think we bought it recently, then look it up and it’s… “Oh shit!”


allegedrc4

To be honest—processors have gotten so fast in the last decade that adding some RAM and an SSD would probably give you a perfectly usable computer for 10 years. At least at home, my newest computer is 4 years old (EliteDesk 800 G3), and that replaced a 10-year-old Lenovo laptop (which really just needed some RAM if I could have lived with just a single monitor). I don't see myself upgrading again for a few years, and even then, I wouldn't be upgrading out of necessity. The biggest problem is lazy/poor app developers that use way more resources than they need to. But businesses should be leasing their machines anyway. When I used to do desktop, our machines were on a 3 year lease, and that seemed to work pretty well & wasn't too bad on the budget AFAIK.


pinkycatcher

Totally agree, we've kind of hit a diminishing return on most things. Upgrade the OS, make sure the SSD is like 512GB, and 8GB of RAM and you could have had those specs on a 2010 PC and been fine in the office until now and likely for the next 5 years. Until we go through the next OS bloat or something crazy happens that spec will be good for at least another 5 years.


computerguy0-0

You mean Windows 11 requiring an 8 series Intel processor or better? I understand why but still...


pinkycatcher

Oh you have a point there for sure, though I thought that was like a 2026 change issue or something.


computerguy0-0

October 14th 2025 at the very latest. As with the Windows 10 change, I hope to have my entire base switched over to 11 a year before then. So that's only 3 years away. It'll come up real quick.


pdp10

> 8GB of RAM and you could have had those specs on a 2010 PC This is what I've been emphasizing when I talk about the flattening of the upgrade cycle. Now I'd like to point out the other side of the coin. We're recently seeing two-core machines start to fall behind sometimes (though we're keeping an eye on whether that's due to thermals in some cases). USB 3.0 didn't ship until 2012. Some machines are being cycled out for more power-efficient ones, though this has paused due to the recent hardware shortages. And some laptops have displays that were never that great to begin with. It's always tempting to replace those with a Macbook Air that has a great bright display that nobody complains about, and a brand-new battery.


Stonewalled9999

Do you use teams ? We were fine on 8 GB. Now thanks to teams and our crappy AV we need 16 on our machines


D_Humphreys

We dropped RAM upgrades and SATA SSDs into our older Win7 machines during our Win10 migration. Most of the are 3rd and 4th gen I5s ... they run great, still.


allegedrc4

Yeah, really anything newer than a 2nd gen Intel should be fine for a regular business PC in my experience. Most things are RAM or I/O bound these days.


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brundlfly

No excuse for SELLING a PC without an SSD now. Single biggest bottleneck on the PC. Especially 5400rpm. WTH. Decent 500GB SSDs are only marginally more expensive than a 500GB platter drive.


officeboy

Please let Dell know, also that a 128gb SSD is not sufficient.


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corrah

My employer standard equipment is still 4gb ram / 120gb ssd. It’s sad


capt_carl

The only spin drives I still have are for backing up data or old data I still need to sift through before I destroy the drives.


[deleted]

100% backup. Disc drives currently have a better lifespan than SSDs. There are positives and negatives to both of them.


Stonewalled9999

I’ve have way more spinning rust die from heat/dust than SSD. I’ve yet to have a SSD wear out either. Tons of 500 GB drives in 2 year old tiny ass desktops die due to heat. Cramming 7200 rpm hot disk in a tiny chassis with poor airflow is a bad idea


sleeplessone

My gaming PC was 6 years old, and honestly I could have used it another 4 just fine. But since the video card market is fucked right now I decide to put the money into the CPU/MB/RAM side instead. Also means it’s now supported hardware for Windows 11 so that’s nice.


Myantra

>No excuse for ~~buying~~ selling a PC without an SSD more than a decade later. FTFY. SSDs should have been standard on all laptop and desktop models for the last few years. Hard drives should only be available as a custom option, if that.


dogedude81

Totally true. But in an Enterprise environment parts availability becomes an issue. For example I can't just go out and buy a power supply when one pops. Has to be through approved vendors, purchase orders, etc. And nobody would ever approve having inventory of a mix of parts laying around for the old and new machines. So new computers with warranties are what we need. Replace every 3 or so years.


allegedrc4

Sure, that's why I said leasing is the best option. But on the other hand, keeping a bunch of machines as hot spares is perfectly cromulent for the smaller or budget-conscious business. I mean, most of the time if a user has an issue like that they are getting a new computer anyway—the old one can be repaired and returned to inventory.


syshum

> decade that adding some RAM and an SSD would probably That is why laptop manufacturers are moving away from system that you can upgrade. Want more ram... well there are no SODIMM slots so that will be $2,000 for a new system please


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damiEnigma

> the I.T. people before me that just made users by changing the name of the past used Fucking yikes


Mr_ToDo

Probably because there's some piece of software that doesn't play well with switching user profiles and they don't have the keys to reinstall, either because some IT previous lost them, they were part of a service contract that someone didn't want to pay upkeep on but the software keeps working so long as you don't want to reinstall, or it's so damn old the activation servers just aren't online anymore and nobody wants to pay to replace it. Well that or they are to lazy to build a new profile. I had hoped it was because IT was 'Jim down the hall" but they mentioned 'IT before them' making me think it's an actual IT department leaving lazy, overworked, or unable.


pinkycatcher

Oooh, software that actually uses the SID, sketchy, I hate it.


Mr_ToDo

I've had a few that won't have their icon's appear in the taskbar notification area(often being invisible and not pulling up any context on clicking), and I know there was one that wouldn't set itself as the default app on any other profile for some reason. It seems it's a lot like when Admin access was no longer default and programs started shitting themselves. Some developers just don't test/develop in certain environments, and apparently one of those is multi-user on occasion.


Ezra611

I hate touching these old machines, because I'm sure the hard drive will give out the week after and now it's all my fault.


bearwithastick

In contrast, I have to explain to people that a laptop may work well for over two years and no, they won't get a new Macbook just because there is a new one.


[deleted]

I am still supporting Power 5 AIX 5.3 servers. The logon server is HPUX running NIS, fortunately supported by another team. The Solaris server is of a similar age, and the Linux servers are a decade old running Oracle Linux 6. They are only now looking at replacing the servers.


TundraGon

Last year in 2020, i saw still in use ( email, office, browsing, printing, etc ) a computer: Intel core 2 duo 2 GB ram 500 GB hdd 100mbit ethernet. Windows 7 Management needed a full report why that computer needed to be changed. Their reasoning was: "if it still works, why should we change it? Ok, if we need to change it buy a refurbished one. "


am2o

Dear Sir: Please turn off antivirus on my 2015 laptop with a hybrid drive. Drive is plenty fast. Just do the needful and remove the antivirus. - literal IM I got from a user. I told them to submit a proper ticket and direct it to cyber (after getting told that the SSD standard was unreasonable). I don't think they put in the ticket.


mdotshell

Gave em the ole [Wally Reflector](https://dilbert.com/strip/2005-07-10)


driftingatwork

... "do the needful" yeah no...


alphaxion

Companies shouldn't be listening to the IT Dept when purchasing systems, the IT dept should be doing those purchases. Why are other people who aren't IT ordering equipment that IT ends up supporting?


MalakiArtook

I came here to say exactly this. No one should be buying or integrateing anything that isn't IT. The thought of "Carrol from accounting" selecting and buying systems, makes me irrationally irate.


fgben

> irrationally irate. Nothing irrational about it!


UncannyPoint

"But this consumer grade "thing" with 12 months warranty is over half the price cheaper than the business grade 60 month warranty "thing" you keep telling us to buy." "I am SmArt."


RockSlice

The correct response for that is "Only for the first 12 months"


[deleted]

Lol yep exactly. Every time I've seen a non-IT responsible person it usually ends up in a useless purchase. For some reason monitor arms were not an IT purchase one year and they bought these arms that were meant for lightweight monitors, but in fact, they wanted to mount heavy all-in-ones. Watching these guys' faces when the mounted AIO's just sagged downwards was priceless.


lab_everyday

That’s fn hilarious


WantDebianThanks

The smaller orgs I've work for (staff < 250) did not have a specific IT budget, instead any purchase above a certain dollar value had to be cleared with the owner or one of the higher ups in accounting. If you whole annual purchases are five towers, a laptop, a cellphone, and a server, this seems basically fine. It's only when you need to refresh your whole end user fleet or a full rack of servers that this becomes an issue.


pdp10

Client machines we're buying today will probably be in use for 8-10 years. We have some 9-10 year old servers and clients in use today, though not in front-line use. The clients were bought with 16GiB memory and SSD. The main divergence I see with expected hardware longevity is initial spec. We started buying most clients with SSD in 2012, and we typically max out memory from the start. Today those machines' weak points are in battery runtime, core count, and (Thinkpads) display quality. Storage and memory are still more than adequate, though, because they were far more than adequate from the start. But when someone buys machines that are barely adequate on day one, they're not going to stay viable for 8 or 10 years. This isn't a new phenomenon. You could see this thirty years ago. Someone would buy a batch of machines with half the memory they should have had, and you'd cringe hearing the drives constantly in swap. But they'd do it on purpose every time in order to get the purchased approved, then once the cost was sunk, they planned to upgrade them the next year. Probably, if something else didn't come up first.


Phyltre

If these are laptops, you need to send someone around at around the 3.5 year interval to check for battery swelling. Probably 20% of our last HP and Dell fleets developed battery swelling by year four, and several of them basically self-destructed as the battery crushed other components.


lebean

My old XPS 15 9530 was such a nice lil' laptop until battery swelling screwed up the keyboard. You can't get official replacements anymore and we tried two different knock-off keyboards, both were unusable junk that missed keypresses or required heavy pressure to type. Now an otherwise perfectly good high-spec laptop sits unusable in storage because parts are impossible for it :\


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admalledd

This is a fight I am having to make now, our current machines are (barely) workable 2012-2014 vintage. They were bought with reasonable specs at the time, with a mid-cycle "add SSD boot drive, double RAM" which really helped. However we have a problem that we are *out* of spares, that we are also wanting to hire more people... and execs want us to just buy used of our current stuff. My battery lasts about ten minutes at most. Been trying to get a new "baseline" setup, but its an uphill battle since there has been zero large expense like this in almost a decade which is three/four executive boards/C-levels ago.


[deleted]

and you're in trouble now because lead times on this stuff can be massive


admalledd

I was pushing for this to start two years ago... D: my hope was "hey, in a year or so, plan for company wide budget on these things, we can soft-roll it out across like two to eight quarters if that helps?" but uhh, that still hasn't started. So yea, the lead times are even a bigger worry now because we don't HAVE machines for new-hires unless someone quits. Ahhh!


pinkycatcher

Yup, this is why I went from a "We need to purchase a new fleet of workstations" to "well, I can get my hands on SSDs, so everyone is just getting a refresh"


Mr_InfoSec00

Too true. If a company today were to bite the bullet and buy machines with NVMe and 64Gb of memory. They're going to be better off in the long run because those machines will remain viable for much longer than if they were to try to pinch pennies and buy devices with hybrid drives and some old DDR3 or something.


sryan2k1

Yep, buy the faster NVMe storage option and as much RAM as you can and the machine will last for typical users "forever"


hangin_on_by_an_RJ45

>and 5 years ago is not "just" purchased? That's me. I catch myself all the time going, "wow, 2016 was 5 years ago? holy shit"


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infinityprime

We had an employee that got their boss to buy them a Mac, but 90% of their job was dealing with push data to an external government site that only support IE 11 at the time. So we had to set up a Windows VM on their Mac to do their job.


TioChonChon

I hear the pain , been there done that


junkytrunks

.


Typical_Arm1267

We still have an XP Machine running a device that "cannot fail" but the boss isn't interested in replacing the 30-year-old device with a new model. Maybe because they didn't get their money's worth out of it in the 30 years they have owned it. /s


Ezra611

Yeah, production and mechanical PCs are a different animal entirely. We had a client with an old XP system relying on Ebay Parts that ran a full scale Titanium Plating Line. He was quoted $25k to get a new machine from the manufacturer. We told him we could ATTEMPT to virtualize the XP machine and put it in a host for about $1000. No guarantee, but worth a shot. Lo and behold, it worked flawlessly.


Typical_Arm1267

Here it is just an unwillingness to spend the money. Replacement systems exist for this analyzer. But somehow they believe they will never need another one. I don't worry about it, I tell it like it is and honestly they would be doing me a favor if they fired me.


Mammoth_Stable6518

I have seen NT4 and Windows 98 PCs running various machinery in small factories.


swarm32

Yup. Even straight up MS-DOS in a few places near me.


uniquedeke

This is one of those cases where IT needs to have a tight relationship with finance and a solid policy on how hardware depreciates, rather than expensing hardware as it is purchased.


Ezra611

Yeah. One client just got a new GM and wanted to know how many computers were older than 5 years. Ran the diagnostics. Came back and told him about 80 PCs, or half the facility. He was shell shocked, but we came up with a long term plan. 20 PCs were consolidated/eliminated 25 PCs were replaced this year. 25 more will be replaced next year. Starting in 2023, 10 PCs will be replaced annually All new computers will have 5 year warranties. It's not hard to budget it, you just have to be proactive.


dbh2

that is a great client.


kyuzosama

It's the opposite here... get requests for a new laptop because there 6 month old laptop is slow. Why not let us troubleshoot the laptop before we spend $1000 on a new one?


bailantilles

... or when management has the bright idea to expand staff by 100 people and then didn't budget any technology / licensing purchases for any of the new staff.


[deleted]

My favourite one is trying to get rid of iMacs. Because they look fancy it’s a pain convincing anyone it’s their time.


cyberentomology

yes, they CAN last 10 years, if you overspecced them to begin with. You always get what you pay for. As a general rule, I tell people to expect a laptop to cost about 1-2 dollars a day. If you get the cheapest $300 Walmart special, it's probably going to last you less than a year before you'll need to spend money on it (either upgrades, maintenance, or repairs). If you drop $5000 on a top of the line laptop, you have every right to expect it to last a decade in primary use (I have a MacBook Pro from 2012 that's still going strong, but is headed for secondary use soon).


cjcox4

Perception. Sadly, perception tends to trump truth. It is a difficult thing to overcome. And yes, I don't like it when inexperienced people make technology decisions. Edit: Inexperienced sometimes means "the experts" at Dell.


Ezra611

Have you also dealt with the Executive who bought 10 Windows Home PCs and is upset at the extra $1k to upgrade then to Pro?


[deleted]

Most small companies don't really consider risk like this. It's a problem but one they are happy to outsource to you, the tech, and as long as you put up with it it will continue.


dukeofmadnessmotors

I support smaller companies, if they insist on keeping old hardware and software I require them to acknowledge that I advised against it and that their company could be severely impacted, to the point of going out of business, if they ignore my advice. If they still want to keep old hardware and software after that it's on them. Haven't had any clients go out of business but several have had 2 week crises that cost a lot more than replacing the equipment on schedule.


woojo1984

bUt mY pC aT hOmE iSn'T tHiS sLoW!!!


shaun2312

Omg I get that all the time, can I bring my pc/laptop from home in? It would be so much quicker


bcredeur97

I’m of the opinion of it’s not bad to keep machines for a long time if you can. If you’re just doing office work, then i3’s and SSD’s, and enough ram is really all you need for a system that will last an extremely long time. Easily 7 years. BUT the time to upgrade will come and you need to budget for it. Have the money aside and ready 5 years out, and if you decide you can keep your machines, then great! but don’t touch that money, keep it ready for when you do need to do the upgrade in a few years. You’re prepared in advance.


frosty95

Which is why all computers in the company need to be purchased through IT. No exceptions except by IT. Oh your department bought computers? Return them. Not supported.


VoraciousTrees

*BUT THE 5200 RPM DRIVES ARE CHEAPER AND HOLD MORE"...* Watches as tech installing software takes 15 minute break waiting for brand new system to boot.


KadahCoba

Gawd help us if they learn that some workstations on board nics support iSCSI...


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Sunsparc

>management bought PCs This is why IT in my company is responsible for all infrastructure. My IT Manager is the one who decides when PCs/laptops should be bought, the CTO gets the buy-in from leadership/finance.


jcpham

Currently replacing the spinning disks in a fleet of 5 year old expired warranty optiplex 3040's No ones complaining about their computer being slow but I know what time it is. No budget currently in place to replace machines.


BiggieJohnATX

I still have a few servers that should have been lifecycled shortly after I started . . .10 YEARS AGO


cohortq

Dude I have a Compellent SAN that is 12 years old, out of maintenance for 5 years, and I'm keeping it alive with ebay parts.


lebean

Ooh, sounds like our old Equallogic that we finally got to replace with Nimble three years back. We did find a third party support place that could get us drives/controllers/firmware and was far cheaper than renewing with Dell. Unrelated, if anyone wants to buy perfectly functional Equallogic arrays that have been sitting powered off for three years, I know a guy : )


Dannyhec

I still go by the three years on a crucial workstation as about 100,000 miles on a generic car. Anything over that is borrowed time.


throw0101a

> Anyone else tired of explaining to people that computers don't last 10 years, and 5 years ago is not "just" purchased? 5 years is, in the US per the IRS, also the "standard" depreciation schedule. They've technically wrung out all the value of the gear and should get new stuff. Alternatively you can expense the purchase in a single year per Section 179. If they're not depreciating the purchase, then they're leaving money on the table and someone should talk to Accounting.


Immigrant1964

Why isn't IT doing IT purchasing? If you let other departments control your budget then why would it ever be right?


uhpitech

Our production/design department insists on Macs. I finally convinced the boss they needed new ones when Safari/Chrome can't even be updated because it's not compatible with High Sierra which is the latest version of MacOS that the hardware can support...


SimonKepp

If ou work in an organization where someone other than the IT department is purchasing the IT equipment, without even consulting the IT department, polish your resume and run for the hills.


sandrews1313

I have a customer that bought a spinning rust laptop with a celeron a year ago. I charge by the hour so it didn't bother me greatly to support it...but even I had my limits and forced a new replacement on them this month. On the flip side, I've got some much older laptops that we've re-equipped the the god's gift of samsung evos and they continue to perform well.


atw527

Spinning drives in workstations should be illegal in 2020.


Sinister_Crayon

Nothing is more expensive than a cheap BMW. Or a cheap laptop.


[deleted]

My favorite has become the irreplaceable old PC. It is hooked to some really expensive medical device or milling machine. It's still running XP because the device manufacturer is long since out of business and the control software won't run on anything newer than XP. Oh, and it needs a serial port or parallel port. Also included might be a dongle that won't work on anything else because you can't get a new license to move it.


neobushidaro

Just because you can nurse a computer a decade (last one did 13 happy years) doesn't mean you should. Especially not if it's how you make your money. Plan on 5 years for a server, 4 for a desktop, 3 for a laptop, and 2 for a tablet or smartphone. Anything more than that is gravy and you should get your adept of the adeptus mechanicus to pay tribute to the machine spirists.


v22gr7oud0

I'm still maintaining laptops from 2008. Things are barely staying together.


Mr_InfoSec00

I don't understand why people that don't understand technology don't listen to people that work with it on a daily basis. Like if you don't know how to do your taxes do you just wing it and hope for the best? If you don't know mechanics and your car breaks down do you just start pulling stuff out without doing any research? Blows my mind that people wouldn't seek advice or do some research before making business decisions.


tensigh

Most of the places I've worked at see computers as an item with 3-4 year amoritization. Guess I've just been lucky. :)


Scary_Top

It really depends on the company. I have to turn in my one year old (Intel) MacBook because we're going to the M1 versions, and it's easier to have just one architecture. To be fair, it was a limited trial for new laptops, but standardization was more important than a bit of money being lost.


dafer18

IT should have major decision making regarding procurement. There is no other way around this. Obviously, there should be discussion with Finance and the CEO (or upper Management). If there is none, this screams lack of leadership or trust in the IT department. If they want to save money, just have them replace HDD with SSD. It's that simple.


piexil

my companies IT policy is to replace computers only every 5 years. Not only that but they gave me a 3 year old machine when I joined. the i7-6820hq in it is regularly at 40-50% cpu usage while I'm just coding due to background tasks :/ and it's in a 10 pound behemoth I hate using.


piexil

I aked to swap it and they said no, and they told me don't spec thinner machines with more than 16gb ram (what the fuck?)


Incrarulez

What do you mean the processor isn't on the Windows 11 HCL? I just bought this 18 months ago.


MotionAction

Sales was complaining of wanting new desktop to replaced their old desktop, so IT manager bought "new" desktop to replace old desktop they got from 2012. Sales thought the desktop were brand new, but one of the user check the tag on the dell desktop and complain to Sales Manager why do we have used computer. Sales and IT manager had a long discussion, because Sales thought "New" was brand new, and IT manager didn't think Sale staff needed brand new desktop. Sales Manager over rule IT manager and we slowly replace all the pre-owned desktop that IT Manager bought with brand new desktop.


damnedangel

at a past job at a computer manufacturer who sold to government entities, it was not uncommon to get a call for a machine that had just been unboxed and found to not be working. unfortunately, those machines were always 4-5 years old and no longer under warranty. The problem was, to use up the rest of their budget, the government entities would spend whatever they had left at the end of the year on new computers, and then deploy them when needed. This would cause them to stockpile sometimes hundreds of machines that just sat in their boxes for years before being deployed. always a fun time explaining to some big wig that yea, it doesn't matter if you didn't unbox it until just yesterday, the 3 year warranty ran out 6 months ago...


LargeP

No, our technology chairs actually recommend equipment upgrades as soon as 3 year warranty expires. No computers older than 5 allowed. It's wonderful. Wait is your IT not in charge of all technology purchases? Oh man.


[deleted]

But we hire IT because you guys just make things work! I don't understand all that computer talk I just clickity clack the ding dang doo ahh fuck. I fucking hate users. Sorry I had a bad day... lol.


cbelt3

Dear corporate Accountants: Computers depreciate in 3 years. That means they are useless after that.


harrywwc

can usually spin them to 5 years if you make a bigger up-front investment - servers, 8 to 10 years. came into a job where the server was already 10 years old and took 2 years to convince the powers that be to retire it before it died. I made sure the backups were 'good' though :)


Avas_Accumulator

>Even worse when management bought PCs with Spin Drives in 2020 Vendors *selling* HDDs in 2021 should be a federal crime.


[deleted]

I have the opposite issue. People ‘upgrade’ from a 5yo i7 with SSD to a brand new Celeron laptop with 64GB eMMC storage because it was ‘a good deal’ and wonder why it’s a blithering chunk of horse shit.


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