If I hire an MSP, are they just going to make me replace all my hardware because it is a few years old?

The fear has a real source: some providers do walk in, declare everything obsolete, and quote a forklift replacement, sometimes because they profit on the hardware. That is a sales tactic, not an assessment. A professional onboarding produces something different: an inventory of what you have, how old it is, how it is performing, and where the genuine risks sit, followed by a lifecycle plan that prioritizes and spreads any replacements over time. Age alone is not a verdict; a five-year-old desktop doing light work with an SSD may be perfectly fine, while a nine-year-old server carrying the whole business is a risk with a countdown attached.

What an honest provider will insist on naming: machines running operating systems past their security-update dates (a real security hole, not a preference), hardware whose failure would stop the business, and the false economy of very old machines whose slowness quietly costs more in wages than replacement would. Naming those is the provider doing its job; a provider who never mentions your aging equipment is skipping part of the assessment, which is its own red flag. The difference between advice and pressure is that advice comes with reasons, priorities, and options, and leaves the decision with you.

Practical protections: ask for the replacement rationale in risk terms, ask what can be extended cheaply (RAM and SSD upgrades stretch many machines years), ask whether the provider profits on hardware sales or passes equipment through at cost, and expect a multi-quarter plan rather than a demand. Budget-planned replacement on your schedule is one of managed IT's quiet benefits; surprise replacement on theirs is a reason to keep interviewing.