We are now a two MBP house

Hardware
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This is the abriged version as I decided the original post was way too long…

The MacBook Pro (2017, 13", 8GB/256GB, TouchBar) bought in September developed a fault a week after my son went off to university at the end of the month and basically refused to turn on without a lot of coaxing and even then it presented a folder icon on a grey screen - which after a spot of research essentially meant it was dead. Wonderful.

Sent it back to the store but because we’d bought it online it had to be returned to a central warehouse. A week went by and it was processed in and I received a call informing me that there were no replacement models left in stock anywhere. I suggested paying the difference to get the 512GB model and after much deliberation they agreed and even went as far as writing off the extra £200 due to hassle.

Another week went by with me phoning almost on a daily basis for a status update and I discover that I shouldn’t have been promised the upgrade and that all they could do was issue a refund. Fine, at least then I can just place a new order. Or so I thought. Turns out that the 512GB model is also out of stock now. Hardly surprising really given the rather large discount on the 2017 models.

Decided to hold off and see what the new MBA would be like, but eventually went for the 2018 model MBP in the end.

Fast forward another two weeks and my late-2008 MacBook has finally decided to call time. Originally I thought it was the SSD but after dropping that into another laptop and installing Windows 10 without issue, coupled with another spare HDD in the MacBook showing the same symptoms, I concluded that the MacBook was terminally ill. Just what I needed right now.

After spending the last two days having to use my work-provided Windows 10 laptop, I had already started missing everything about macOS that was making my life so much easier up to now, even though it was a 10-year old machine. So much so that I found myself browsing the Apple website this evening and ended up in the refurbished store and clicking ‘Buy’ on a 2018 MBP 13" 16GB/512GB w/TouchBar. With 15% off retail price, it seemed like too good a deal to pass up.

Fortunately I am working from home on Thursday when it will be delivered, although I have an appointment for an hour in the morning and you can guarantee that that is the time the delivery driver turns up.

Oh, and the purchase of Carbon Copy Cloner a couple of weeks ago was fully justified as a full weekly scheduled backup had completed in the early hours on the day of failure. How lucky is that?

2 Likes
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I’d say that’s less about luck and more about proper preparation.

1 Like
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Very true, but it did give me a smug feeling of satisfaction when I realised that all my stuff was safe. The vast majority is stored on OneDrive and/or DEVONthink so I can access that on any other device for the former and on my iPhone for the latter. The only files that I don’t have access to at the moment is my Lightroom catalog and the last few months of photos that are sitting in the “edit queue” folders.

I do need to get the rest of my backup strategy sorted though, probably using a Minio S3 instance running in a Docker container for local backups and Backblaze B2 for an “if all else fails” backup, likely using Arq and Restic for the clients.