Leaving your machine on 24 Hrs a day

[Olympiaman1010]

I was just wondering what some people do with their older machines. Do you think it is better to leave them on constantly or not. I was reading in one of my guide books that they think it is better to leave the computer on. This is due to the power surge you give your machine each time you turn it on. I mean I can kind of see where this is going, light bulbs always burn out when turned on because of the surge. Also I think the motors in the hard drives are able to outlast the life of the drive itself anyways. But of course then I think if my LCIII was left on since 1992 would it still be alive and well today. What do you guys think??

-James

 

[Strimkind]

I leave it on most of the time but I put it to sleep each nice to save electricity. I like the idea of saving energy but not having to wait for it to boot up all the time.

 

[Unknown_K]

I have a 10 year old server that is on 24/7, the rest get turned on as needed. Sure there is a power surge when you first turn a machine on, but the old PS are designed for that anyway and will fail eventually from capacitor aging no matter what you do. Don't worry they should be fixable 20 years from now.

 

[johnklos]

The power surge from turning machines off and on is only a factor for cheesy electronics. Good electronics are built for that, just as they're built assuming that a device might be on indefinitely.

All good hardware can run all the time without issues. In some cases, hard drive bearing life is longer when the machine is run continuously. Sitting on a shelf can be more damaging for old drives than running.

Aside from leaky capacitors and fans, old hardware, especially Mac hardware, should be able to run indefinitely. I have two VAXstation machines from the early 1990s which have probably been on for at least fifteen of the last twenty years, plus an Amiga 1200 which has been on since 1995 with short exceptions. That's how it's supposed to work. My PowerMac 9600 server hasn't been rebooted since it was moved to the new datacenter nearly a year ago, and part of that can be attributed to the fact that the hardware is overengineered, good quality hardware. PC makers generally tend to try to save money, so there's generally not as much quality.