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Re: [TCLUG:1345] Turn off my computer?



Ben Luey wrote:
> 
> I'm trying to decide if I should leave my computer running all the time,
> or turn it off at night. How bad is it for the hard drive to be spinnig 24
> hours a day, 7 days a week? I typically have my computer on for 8 hours a

Probably pretty bad, so it's a good thing it doesn't.  Assuming a
reasonable amount of memory, everything the computer needs to deal with
it's hourly cron jobs (at list the out-of-distro jobs) will still be
cached after the first job.  The only time my drive runs when I'm not
sitting at the box is a remote logon or its 1am daily cron cleanup.

> day, and turn it off when I'm asleep, turn it on 16 hours a day.
> 
> Any recommendations - I basically want what is best for the computer,
> although I have some concern for power consumption.

I've heard that booting is the worst part of a drive's day.  I don't
know how true that is, but I'd say that the damage from leaving it off
or on is small and the differnce almost negligable.

Futhermore most newer BIOSes (BIOi?) can shutdown some of the components
after specified periods of inactivity.  Mine takes down the monitor
after 1/2 an hour and the drives after 2.