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From: thad@public.BTR.COM (Thaddeus P. Floryan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: TURN COMPUTER OFF OR LEAVE ON?
Message-ID: <3030@public.BTR.COM>
Date: 12 Jun 91 08:01:03 GMT
References: <1991Jun3.194555.3525@newserve.cc.binghamton.edu> <1991Jun6.204719.10657@eng.umd.edu> <1991Jun7.154552.14096@infonode.ingr.com> <1991Jun8.081224.19511@nntp.hut.fi>
Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Organization: BTR Public Access UNIX, Mountain View CA
Lines: 59

In article <1991Jun8.081224.19511@nntp.hut.fi> mstr@vipunen.hut.fi (Markus Strand) writes:
>[...]
>It is not that simple. The harddrive will not last long, if you run
>it all the time. It depends on the drive for how long pauses you
>should turn your computer off. Also external peaks in the power,
>like ightnings are a threat to the computer.

From many talks with Hard Drive Repair and Data Recovery Services around the
country, the two WORST times for a hard drive are power-up and power-down due
to non-optimal platter rotation and head movement to/from "park."

Power glitches ARE a problem for both hard and floppy drives.  As I've related
many times here in the past, I used to get trashed floppies several times a
week due to incidents like turning flourescent lamps on/off, refrigerator motor
kicking in, operating drill motor(s) in my garage, and even turning modems on
or off.  Use of transient and surge suppressors TOTALLY eliminated ALL those
problems (but you have to use properly-designed ones; mine are mfd by GTE).

Operating the systems on UPS/SPS doesn't hurt, either!  :-)

>[...]
>There is a difference with a Amiga and a unix box. You can simply turn
>your Amiga off and power it up next time you need it. But the unix
>machine you have to run down in order to sync disks and stop all
>prosesses. A unix that has simply been shut down might need some
>help when booting if the disks are messed up.

Let's put an emphasis on that "might."  Modern UNIX systems don't seem to
have the power-going-down-NOW filesystem problem of days yore.

>[...]
>I have and will in the future not run my computers 24h if
>there is nothing going on in the CPU.
>[...]

I'm surprised to read that.  In my opinion, if your computer is not instantly
available to serve you, then you are a slave to your computer.

Because I consider my computers as "tools", I keep them running constantly
so that *I* need NOT wait to take notes during a phone call, or check out a
piece of code, or search some database, or enter financial transactions, or
anything else for which *I* use computers.  If I had to wait for bootup then
I've been inconvenienced and the potential of the computer as an appliance has
been diminished.

As said by someone else: "A luxury, once sampled, becomes a neccessity".   I
consider the immediate availability of a computer as essential as a telephone,
a FAX, indoor plumbing, the power grid, air, etc. all of which are available
all the time (essentially).

In just over two months from now, my first Amigas will have been operated
CONTINUOUSLY for 6 years (with only minor power service interruptions and
the occasional power-down to clean the insides).  And this is in an area
where the PGE power pole flanking my back yard has a habit of spontaneously
bursting into flame every few months and sparks & etc. flicker up and down
the pole; whoever said wood doesn't conduct electricity hasn't seen that
power pole!  :-)

Thad Floryan [ thad@btr.com (OR) {decwrl, mips, fernwood}!btr!thad ]