On Fri, 2016-10-07 at 11:38 -0500, geo.inbox.ignored wrote: > computers are like a light bulb, leave the light on and it will last > longer than it will by having to deal with inrush current when turned > on from a cold state. > > if you feel that you must save power, consider 'save to memory'. in > 'long run', cost of electricity may well be less than having to > replace costly components. There's a weigh off between how *often* you turn something on and off, versus the leave it on approach. Taking your lightbulb example, and running it to the extremes. I have lights that lasted for years, despite being turned on and off. But if I rapidly flip the switch, I can blow a lamp in under a minute. Switching something on and off many times an hour is definitely going to provoke the gremlins. But switching it on once a day, only having it running for half a day, is probably going to be better than leaving it on all the time (particularly with general consumer equipment). As well as the electricity costs, which are not insignificant (especially if you're doing this with many appliances), you have things with bearings that wear out (fans, disc drives). I work in video production, and I'm well familiar with the notion of leaving things always on. Stations do that for many reasons, avoiding technical failure is just one, having things always ready to go in an instant is probably just as important. But at home, I've got a server that runs 24/7, and it's needed fans replacing a few times. I've got similarly old computers that are turned off and on daily, and those are running just as well as they always did. And I'm talking of equipment that's somewhere around the ten year old mark. -- tim@localhost ~]$ uname -rsvp Linux 3.19.8-100.fc20.i686 #1 SMP Tue May 12 17:42:35 UTC 2015 i686 All mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted, there is no point trying to privately email me, I will only read messages posted to the public lists. George Orwell's '1984' was supposed to be a warning against tyranny, not a set of instructions for supposedly democratic governments. _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
