What is the average lifespan of a hard disk?

Is it worth upgrading an acer laptop (256 MB Ram 20 GB Hard disk) that is 3 years old?

• I really need a new laptop. My Acer Aspire 1350 is in great condition and have no problems, but it is just so terribly slow (256 MB ram) and my hard disk (20 GB) is almost full. I am thinking about either adding 512 MB ram and an external hard disk or buing a new laptop. Would it make sense to upgrade it? Does anyone know the typical lifespan of a laptop?

• Answer:

  The lifespan of a laptop varies greatly - it can be as little as a few hours to longer than a decade - I've got two that're over a decade old, still work fine except for battery life. At three years old, with a laptop that came stock with 256MB RAM and ~2GHz Athlon XP processor, I really don't advise getting rid of it. You could try a fresh Windows XP install, then uninstalling the excess junk/trial software (assuming you have a restore disk and not an actual XP disk with the holographic effects). OR, you could do what I do for older computers - install Ubuntu. I've included two links - the first one is an image to burn to CD (completely free, new version), the second being instructions how to depending on what CD-burning software you have, and the third to order a CD (you can pay for the new version or get the older version which has more support shipped to your house for free). Either way, the CD you'll get is a LiveCD, meaning you put it in your drive, then boot up your computer, and it boots you right into it without installing it on your hard drive. If you like how it works, you can install from there, and if not, you haven't lost Windows. As for upgrading it, it can never hurt matters, but it depends on how much you're willing to spend. Also, always always ALWAYS be sure you're matching the right kind of RAM, they're not all the same. A decent external HD will run you about $100, the RAM shouldn't be more than $40-50. Compared to $500-600 for a low-end new laptop, or well over $1200 for something worth mention as far as new laptops go, you might as well just work with what you've got - unless you're wanting to try out Windows Vista, the laptop you've got, if you treat it right, might last you a decade more!