I’ve owned a ton of Roland synths/drum machines (older - pre 2000) and never had a single crash/freeze/brick of ANY unit. It’s one of the reasons I use hardware vs computers/softsynths - the stability should be more reliable.
own macbooks since 2008 and had no single crash
Edit: Ok ableton shut down a few times I admit 
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I find it amusing when people say hardware is more stable than computers. 20 years ago maybe
Hardware is computers
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Exactly
Further back than that. Things were built to last. But thats no good for manufacturers.
Perhaps if you totally tweak your laptop into being only for music production, that might be the case. Hardware boxes aren’t running updates in the background, checking for new emails, receiving text mssgs, running virus scans, etc etc while you’re working on your music.
sounds like a TERRIBLY under powered machine if it cant handle more than one thing at a time. 
auto updates on is also a very bad idea. good to have that disabled. 
If you on windows 10 then no such luck as far as I know.
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Leave it to windows to have to edit GPO’s and the registry to calm the onslaught of updates. There solution is setup work hours, workable for a business but personal use is sporadic and often not predictable.
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It is entirely up to the user whether or not their computer is running background tasks, irrespective of the operating system.
There is no reason to think that computers are less reliable than hardware, most computers end up in the bin, not because they are broken, but because they have been superseded by a more powerful one.
Digitally controlled hardware is just a computer with a specialized os.
If it is well engineered I recon that it should be more stable as it is specialized.
But in practice, for todays computers I believe this is not the case, at least the failure probability is not significantly different.
it is your responsibility to maintain your computer in a stable config, and decide if you want to use it for Music only or not, update your os or not, update your daw and vsts or not, connect it to the internet or not…
If you choose to use it for other activities, install non-Music apps running in the background, update it every week, this is not surprising that it could become less stable…
If you are still are frightened of computer stability nowadays you can run sessions with dual computer and a dual audio interface. (Like iconnectivity playaudio12).
I’ve dealt with many more catastrophic hardware failures leading to lost work and productivity. NIC failures at weird times, video card issues, multiple dead hard drives, firewire driver issues that dragged on for years. I had a power supply failure resulting in a small fire and I had a non-OC’d CPU liquefy even though the voltage was correct and the fan was still running. I lost count of the bad RAM DIMMs. A good friend of mine just lost a chunk of 20 years worth of work because his backup died.
Yeah, they just don’t make monosynths like they used to… 
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I wish I could get more into computer-based music creation. Hardware is just more twiddle-y.
I’m still waiting/searching for the right solution that will enable be to be able to properly twiddle knobs for sound design in Ableton(Push 2 isn’t satisfactory for this prerogative)
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Feel bad I derailed so bad a spin off was created, anyways. I’d love to use a PC/Mac for music more but that’s my day job, IT consultant. I also own the business so once I finally end my work day, I’m spent with screens. I know how powerful they are, I just can’t do it.
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I’ve spilt coffee on both.
Both are unreliable.
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in general purpose operating systems (all desktop OSes) there is no reliability, only probability.
trust me, i’m a system administrator, and i know what i’m talking about 
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That has been my experience in the tech field as well. I’ve been subjected to terrible failures on multiple flavors of MacOS, Windows and Linux. I’ve seen it happen at work and with personal use at home.
My MV-8000, K2000 and OT have never crashed once. I name them only because they are the most computer like instruments I own.
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I’ve had two big crashes on stage live.
One was a Roland R8 receiving incorrect voltage to the power supply at a small club in Croatia. Started smoking. Was kind of “metal”, I admit. My 4/4 beats went all autechre for about 6 seconds before it finally gave up.
The other was a black Macbook. During a Serato set, the fan gave up in a hot club. CPU got real hot so it automatically shut itself off. Not really a crash, more a “prevention of further hardware failure”. But it was a piece of hardware (the fan) that ultimately failed.
So, for me, reliability on both/either is a moot point, because it is usually something beyond my control that is a symptom of the operating environment, not an inherent weakness of the hardware or software (synths and computers use both) system that is to blame.
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