What is the professional oppinion on...

the best way to treat your computer? Do we shut it off every night, leave it running and shut of the monitor or put it in sleep mode? or ...

I am more concerned about taking care of the harddrive, I have a Dell PowerEdge 400SC.

 

Well, I'm sure you've opened up a can of worms here. IMHO, it's really a matter of personal preference. Myself..... I leave mine run 24 - 7. I only shut it off if I'm going to be gone for an extended period. I don't use standby or hibernate but I do have it set to turn off the monitor after a certain period of time.

However, if you're going to leave it on continuously, it's not a bad idea to have a UPS (interruptible power supply). If the power goes out, the computer will keep running. If it's an extended outage, it will shut itself down after the battery in the UPS drains to whatever level you set it to shut down for. Actually, IMHO, everybody should have one regardless of whether they leave the computer run or not but I guess that's a subject for another thread.

Anyway, I vote leave it on. Others will say different I'm sure though.

 

No ifs, ands, or buts...if you run your system 24/7 and your hard drive is spinning for that time, it will wear out faster.

Obviously, the key is to get your HDD to spin down but I don't know anything about hibernation or sleep modes as I gave up on them years ago so I can't advise you on this. I simply leave the power-saving modes at default after installing a system.

But, if you do manage to get your HDDs spun down, my question would then have to be why not just turn it off?

If you think that leaving components powered up all the time is better for them, I'd have to differ with that. IMHO, it boils down to this...if you have a valid reason for keeping the system up 24/7 then do so, if you don't really have one, then turn it off.

 

I'm in the shut down at night camp

And I have Standby enabled and use Hibernate in the summer - never had any trouble with either one.

Regards - Charles

 

Well, I don't really have a rock solid answer to that but.... I've left mine on 24/7 for many years and never had an ounce of trouble. On the other hand, there's been many times over the years where somebody called me up and said, "I don't know what happened. I shut it down last night and this morning it wouldn't start."

I kind of tend to lean toward the old example of the light bulb. When does it usually burn out? When you first turn it on. Not rocket science by any means on my part but it's a fact of life when it comes to eletrical components.

That's not a valid argument you say? Ok, I just like being able to sit down and be up and running instantly. Plus, I have several tasks that take a bit of time to run so I set them up to run at night. It's never bit me yet, so I see no reason to change what I've been doing.

 

I have 3 PCs here, all are on 24\7 with monitors turning off at various times, same with HDs.

No glitches, quirks or any such things. One monitor is about 5 years old, Two others perhaps 2-3 years old.

 

my opinion on the matter has nothing to do with wear and tear on the computer. I am a big fan of energy conservation, so if I turn my computer on and off all the time. If I won't be using it for a few hours, it is off. If I need it, I turn it on, and so on.

Leaving on a computer is such a waste of energy and because so many people are doing it, it is just adding to global warming (sorry..leaving computers on all the time is probably my second biggest un-environmental pet peeve next to people who commute long drives in big cars with only one person in the car...makes me want to scream!!!!)

 

Raingirl, I like your perspective best of all. Your point didn't even cross my mind.

I didn't say that but I was implying that I can't buy into a theory that I can't even come close to proving. Will a system wear out faster from five years of being left on or from five years of being turned on and off? I don't think there's one right answer.

True about the lightbulb. It blows due to the power surge of being turned on and expansion/contraction, etc., etc. The power on/off process also takes its toll on PC components but we come back to the debate of whether it's worse than leaving the PC up all the time.

Undoubtedly, whatever route one takes, most all people will not have problems either way. As in most cases, people upgrade their PCs long before component failure.