On Wed, 3 Nov 1999, Eric Livingston wrote:
> I'm sure this has been hashed out many times before, but I can't find
> anything in the HOWTOs or other documentation on this issue.
>
> I've got a relatively old machine (P90, with a 1Gig drive) that's in use
> now as my home server. Since I'm at work most of the day, and sleeping
> most of the night (well, not most I guess...) I'm using the machine
> perhaps 4-5 hours a day at best, many times only 1-2 hours a day.
>
> In this scenario, is it better to power the machine down for the
> night/workday most of the time, and just power it up for a few hours a
> day, or should I leave it on all the time?
>
> I'm aware of the processes Linux needs to run periodically at night to
> remain up-to-date (like makewhatis, etc), so I'd leave it on overnight
> perhaps once a week for that purpose.
Use anacron in stead of cron, anacron will run the crontabs when the machine
is running or will run them later when the machine was down at the time they
should have been running.
> Really it gets down to the longevity of the hard drive and power supply,
> the theory being that the fans/drive motors take the most abuse during
> spinup and spindown relative to remaining at a constant speed, so at some
> point the wear and tear accumulated by always leaving them on is less
> than it would be subjecting them to daily power-ups and power-downs.
>
> I've heard that the tradeoff is at about 8 hours or so - that is, if the
> machine will be used 8 or more hours a day then it's better just to leave
> it on all the time, whereas lesser usage would indicate turning it off
> during downtime.
I would agree with that. If you're only using it for a few hours a day, there
is realy no use in having it up-and-running all the time. So be environmental
friendly and turn it off :-)
Nico
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
> Eric.
>
>
> --
> To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe"
> as the Subject.
>
>
--------------------------------------------------------
Three things are certain: Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
--------------------------------------------------------
Nico De Ranter
Sony Service Center (SUPC-E/NSSE)
Sint Stevens Woluwestraat 55 (Rue de Woluwe-Saint-Etienne)
1130 Brussel (Bruxelles), Belgium, Europe, Earth
Telephone: +32 2 724 86 41 Telefax: +32 2 726 26 86
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe"
as the Subject.
