Leaving a Computer Running ?

[Kenneth Jennings]

On Saturday 05 February 2005 18:13, Anthony Atkielski wrote:
> Peterhin writes:
[snip]
> - Moving parts are not subjected to thermal and mechanical stresses of
> starting and stopping.  For example, disk drives and fans are under less
> stress during continuous running than they are at the moment when they
> start and stop.  Failures are more likely to occur when a mechanical
> part is started up than during continuous operation.

Ah.  I bet there are more than a few people here who can repeat a horror story 
about what happened when a long running server was shut down.

I remember several years ago we had a HP server at work that had been running 
nonstop for about three years.   One day, due to a major electrical upgrade 
in the computer room, the sysadmin had to cold start it.  Three hard drives 
would not come back up.  Everyone except the sysadmins had a four-day 
weekend.

Since then they've switched to using multiple, redundant hot-swappable 
hardware.

I have a file server in the house that runs continuously.  It sits on an UPS.  
Everything else is shut down at night.