Which is the most durable computer?

May 18, 2018 1:40 PM

Which commercially available personal computer could be expected to remain operational longest without replacement parts? Assume a few hours of use daily and an unlimited supply of user-input peripherals that might break down down mechnically (e.g. mouse/trackpad, keyboard).

If you need a more precise definition of "personal computer" let's say: a computer capable of running a text editor (emacs, vim) and a C compiler.

posted by phrontist to Technology (13 answers total)

On the basis of fewer components leading to a lower probability of component failure, maybe a Raspberry Pi?
posted by pipeski at 1:49 PM on May 18, 2018 [3 favorites]

You might be looking for a commercial application PC like one from logicsupply. That said, I would not expect any PC to be failure free.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 1:59 PM on May 18, 2018

Industrial, aviation, and defense markets have a notion of "MTBF" (mean time between failures) that can be statistically derived/estimated with a variety of techniques. If you can afford to order something like a RAD750 computer from BAE Systems, you'll get all sorts of data from them about expected failure rates. Yes, you could theoretically run a text editor and a C compiler on them if that's of interest to you. Given that these are frequently used in things like multi-decade space missions, you can get an idea of their failure rate.

For what it's worth, the failure rate on these sorts of computers is usually defined by parts other than the CPU - like DRAM bit errors due to radiation.
posted by saeculorum at 2:02 PM on May 18, 2018 [3 favorites]

A few hours of use to perform what operations? You specified mechanical input, do you need visual output? Do you need environmental variables? Are you looking for a desktop or a laptop or an embedded computer? Do you have an operating system need?
posted by erst at 2:09 PM on May 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

Best answer: This is very difficult to predict, which is why people who want reliability almost always focus on redundancy. For example, take a look at the recent Backblaze results for hard drive failure rates. They obviously got a bad batch of Seagate ST4000DX000 drives, which failed for them at an alarming rate. I've gotten a bad batch of Western Digital drives, which required replacing over 300 of them in a single server. In the ancient days, I had similar problems with the infamous IBM Deathstar drives. You never know in advance when you're going to get a bad batch. (Google did a study in 2007 on hard drive failures which might also be of interest to you.)

In all cases, no data was lost because we used redundancy. RAID is your friend, and backups are your friend, and they're your friends for different reasons so you need both if reliability is your primary goal.

Redundancy is key for everything else, too. Get a machine with redundant power supplies, ECC RAM, dual CPUs, and have a spare motherboard on the shelf. Expect to spend at least a couple of thousand dollars.

Unless... unless your goal is reasonable cost, and you can handle a bit of downtime. In that case, just get two or three cheap computers - the Raspberry Pi mentioned above would be fine, or a couple of used computers from Ebay or Craigslist if you want something more powerful - and set up daily (or hourly) backups from your primary machine to your failover machine. You could use rsync for poor man's snapshots from one computer to the other.

Beyond avoiding bad luck and using redundancy, don't let your machines get too hot or dusty. No matter which machine you buy, if you let it fill up with dust and overheat, it'll die.

I've been involved in a few rounds of buying dozens of desktop workstations at a time. It doesn't matter who the manufacturer is, or what components they use, there's always a failure here or there. A manufacturer who put out a great machine three years ago might be putting out a clunker today.
posted by clawsoon at 2:29 PM on May 18, 2018 [3 favorites]

Here is some re-analysis of the Backblaze data using the statistic tools of epidemiologists.
posted by clawsoon at 2:46 PM on May 18, 2018

If you really just need a text editor and a C compiler, how about you look into the off-the-shelf commercial mobile phone hardware that some nanosatellites and smaller satellites are based on. I would expect (hope?) that designing them involves considerable analysis of the durability and longevity of the hardware.
posted by XMLicious at 2:49 PM on May 18, 2018

Hardware is crazy cheap these days. You need to be more concerned about data redundancy.

But, generally speaking, anything with no moving parts (fanless passive cooling, SSD storage) will be pretty reliable. i.e. Chromebooks or their Windows equivalent. We (my bike club) have a fleet of these that we use for managing bicycle races, rain, mud or shine, and they have withstood a few years of abuse. And everything is backed up to the cloud, so we just buy new ones when they break.
posted by wutangclan at 3:29 PM on May 18, 2018

Overall it's kind of hard to answer your question. I've got Sun 3/60's, Sun4 gear, SGI gear, etc., all of which qualify as "personal computers" by your definition, but which have outlived their usefulness even if they technically still run. We use desktops as smart terminals into "the network" and don't store anything of importance locally, but if you do store things locally, then it is worth considering backup strategies.

If you're looking for a standard PC of some sort that is more durable than average, take a closer look at business grade PC's. These frequently come off-lease with around three to five years on the odometer at a very low price.

As an example (not an endorsement), the HP DC7600's that were popular around 2005, we picked up a bunch around 2008, and proceeded to run them hard until 2017. I saw one hard-failed unit, which was a spare one that had been lent to a family member, and came back years later full of dust and Cheetos, killing the CPU fan. Of the remainder, we still keep several around for accessing IDE devices and certain kinds of maintenance in the shop. They're built very well and I don't expect them to die anytime soon.

We replaced the DC7600's in active usage, primarily due to the low-ish RAM limits and old-ish CPU's, with HP Elite 8300's, again off-lease. I snagged several of these in a basic configuration for $125/ea, with Win10 Pro licensing, which itself would run more than that if bought separately. Upgraded them with SSD's and they're very pleasant. The 8300's look to be of similar general build quality to the 7600's but so far less than a year of experience with them. It seems unlikely that we'll replace them before ~2025.

Upsides: good compatibility with FreeBSD, Linux, and apparently they make a mean Hackintosh as well.

Dell also makes some very good business PC's.
posted by jgreco at 3:40 PM on May 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

Anecdotally, HP EliteBooks are stunning, especially the older 4-digit models (2560, 8440, 8570 etc). They are built around a magnesium shell and are very tough for "normal" laptops. I had an old 8440p that I intentionally smashed, two-handed, against the floor as hard as I could. It was fine. I later sold it to a friend (I told her what I had done) and she still uses it to this day as a DJ laptop (so it travels, gets slung into bags, bumped into by dancey fucked-up people etc). It's fine.

There's a reason there are so many refurb EliteBooks out there for sale. Can't kill 'em, although you might want to over the stupid 1366x768 screen most of them have.
posted by glonous keming at 6:24 PM on May 18, 2018

Business class computers generally use higher quality components - the chips with the lower failure rate, more quality checks on the manufacturing, etc. They also stick to a design longer and make parts available longer. I've worked on some ruggedized laptops(Panasonic toughbooks, specifically) built so they can fall down a set of stairs, but haven't kept up. Repair people used to carry them, usually with an ancient OS that was untouched. These days I see everybody with tablets that are generally useful and easily replaced. On occasion, I've worked on computers that run specialized lab equipment. Usually a quality computer with an older OS that has little to no internet access because once the machine is set up and stable and has no internet connection, there's no benefit or requirement to update it.

Macs are built very, very well. If an iPad can run what you need, it's will probably run for a long time, or a Mac laptop or desktop.

Dell and HP also make high quality options, and I'm very pleased with Lenovo Thinkpads. On a bang:buck analysis, used Thinkpads serve me well. Pretty rugged, good specs, easily upgraded because More RAM Is Good. Lots of businesses lease them; when they go off lease, they get sold to companies that refresh them and sell them on ebay or wherever. You can get a pretty good Thinkpad T410 or better for under 300 that will last well, unless a pipe leaks and the laptop is under it, or it falls out of the car, both of which occasioned replacement Thinkpads for me.
posted by theora55 at 8:11 PM on May 18, 2018

From wikipedia: "The RAD750 system has a price that is comparable to the RAD6000 which is US$200,000 per board (per 2002 reference)." (bold emphasis mine.) And for that you get a chip that will run 110-200 MHz and you still have to build a computer around it. Wow.
posted by seasparrow at 12:02 AM on May 19, 2018

Anything 32-bit Linux-based will likely crap out in 2038 when the time_t value rolls over. Any board that gets warm and has BGA solder-mount chips will eventually fail. Power supply caps fail after about 30 years, unless you've been excessively careful about spec when you built the power supply yourself.

After a certain time, hardware gets so comparatively slow compared to newer machines that unless they're impractical (nuclear power station) or impossible (Voyager) to replace, it's more bother to keep them going than to replace them. F'rinstance, the Apple IIgs I have is only 31 years old, but everything about it is quaint: single-digit megahertz CPU, tiny maximum memory, obsolete video standard (even by retrocomputing standards), obsolete storage format (SCSI or capriciously weird floppy formats), obsolete and proprietary keyboard/mouse … and when it's all running it warms up the room a treat.
posted by scruss at 1:48 AM on May 19, 2018