That’s right, in this article I’ll explain why upgrading your old computer will give you a day off. When do I upgrade my computer, it’s an age old question and one that thanks to a very famous geek law is simple to answer. Every two years, is the optimum replacement time for your system because the speed of technology doubles every 2 years. Right now you’re thinking “he’s gone mad!” and on the surface I won’t slight you for thinking such things of me but there’s logic to this and here it is. Many people don’t realize that while the computer may be running and while it may be working fine it might be moving so slow that it could be costing you days of extra time behind the computer or just waiting for it to accomplish a task.
I hear from photographers ALL the time that have had a computer for 3,4,5 and even 6 years. While it would be great if we could have computers be an investment we only have to make once very decade the reality is that as file sizes increase, Photoshop, Paint Shop and many other programs become more advanced you’re computer is becoming slower. This is all on top of the normal slow down home computers experience from general use.
For most it comes time to upgrade when a 4 or 5 year old hard drive fails, Photoshop no longer runs on the computer specifications and you want to upgrade and for many other reasons. But all this talk doesn’t help, so lets do some simple math, for this I’m borrowing some real world numbers from a forum post on OurPPA. Remember these are a real world numbers but a conservative estimate on the amount of time lost waiting for the computer. On to the numbers:
A photographer running a computer that has slowed down due to age, data and other forces. We’ll be conservative and say the computer is 3 years old and that due to this it take the computer 1/10th of an extra second per action to complete the following.
- Open files in Lightroom
- Render “sync” adjustments
- Export the file to a Jpeg
- Open Photoshop
- Open Files
- Run ONE filter
- Save file
This list is something I think many if not all of us do similarly even if the “filter” were an action. Running that simple workflow this photographer would be looking at the following given the numbers he gave me on the forum.
190 weddings per year, 750 file per wedding – totaling 142,500 files
Assuming one of these steps in the work flow takes an additional 1/10th of a second and you do the math you’ll find that add an extra 3.9 hours of time per year to the time you spend behind or waiting on the computer. Counting the 7 basic steps above totals an extra 27.3 hours (1 day 3 hours and 3 minutes) extra.
Considering we’re talking about 0.1 of a second that’s crazy to think it adds up to that much time. But if we were to use the same number of files and estimate they take an extra 100th of a second to run each file on a computer built today that’s only an additional 23.75 minutes per step per year. Reducing the extra time spent behind the computer from 27.3 hours to a small 2.7 hours and leaving you with a full 24 hours less you’re behind the computer, ore 24 hours less that you have to pay someone else to be behind the computer for you. 
Remember that these are conservative and that an older computer may even take longer and this doesn’t even include rendering a slideshow, copying files from different hard drives and many other tasks we do 10′s or even 100′s of times per day on our computers. So next time you’re sitting at your computer and that little load bar is moving slower and you realize it’s been 2, 3, 4 or more years since you upgraded, budget accordingly and give yourself an extra vacation day and go for the upgrade.
