Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community  

Go Back   Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community > Interests > Tilted Technology


 
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 11-20-2003, 09:42 PM   #1 (permalink)
At The Globe Showing Will How Its Done
 
MahlerIsGod's Avatar
 
Location: London/Elysium
To Leave On or Off?

I have asked similiar questions like this before: Do you leave your computer on? Do you leave your speakers on? Now I am asking one more: Do you leave your external drive on? I have a Maxtor 160GB external drive that I use "In Case Shit........" Thus far I have only plugged in the power as I wanted to back things up. When I told a friend about this he said I might damage the harddrive (long-term; plugging and unplugging it) and that most external drives are designed to run 24/7. Is he right? If I leave the drive on for extended periods it does get hot (I have it standing on its side in a base that Maxtor provided [is it better for it to be on its side or laying flat I guess is another question]) and it makes a low hum which I find annoying. But I don't want to lose all the information stored on computer so if I have to put with hum, so be it. So, do I leave this drive on continously or not? Much obliged for any hints, tips, suggestions, etc. Thanks
__________________
"But a work of art is a conscious human effort that has to do with communication. It is that or its nothing. When an accident is applauded as a work of art, when a cult grows up around the deliciousness of inadvertent beauty, we are in the presence of the greatest decadence the West has known in its history."
MahlerIsGod is offline  
Old 11-20-2003, 10:37 PM   #2 (permalink)
Junkie
 
Location: North Hollywood
most modern equipment, os's do have a higher wear and tearn on startup than if they were just idling, how much it can affect the overall life is questionable.

tends to be power supplies and switches that get the most stress.
charliex is offline  
Old 11-21-2003, 12:20 AM   #3 (permalink)
Quadrature Amplitude Modulator
 
oberon's Avatar
 
Location: Denver
My policy is to leave things I use every day on 24/7. That's 3 of my computers out of 9. For things I don't use every day, if they go unused for 2-3 days, I turn them off.

It's mostly a matter of convenience. My power bill/usage is pretty low with this policy. I know computers aren't the #1 power sucker in many people's homes, but they are for me.

So anyway, I agree with charliex. The benefit of leaving a computer on all the time is questionable. Mostly because most people upgrade their computers within 5 years anyway. Normally the effect of flipping the power supply doesn't manifest itself within that time frame. On things like hard drives, CPU's, and the like, the risk is even lower.
__________________
"There are finer fish in the sea than have ever been caught." -- Irish proverb
oberon is offline  
Old 11-21-2003, 02:17 AM   #4 (permalink)
Watcher
 
billege's Avatar
 
Location: Ohio
I can add that the quip about "most external drives are designed to run 24/7" was your friend talking out of his ass.

External hard drives ARE internal hard drives packaged with a case and thier very own PSU. Just for fun they build in the USB and/or Firewire interfaces.

So, that much is crap anyway.

If you are only using that drive to back up, turn the damn thing off whenever you want. If it's not running, it's not suffering wear and tear, is it?

If you're using it every day, or three, maybe you might want to keep it on. Every month...turn that fucker off.

Computer geeks get so damn parinoid about every little point. You'd almost think they were engineers.

(my dad's an engineer computer geek, heh.)
__________________
I can sum up the clash of religion in one sentence:
"My Invisible Friend is better than your Invisible Friend."
billege is offline  
Old 11-21-2003, 01:51 PM   #5 (permalink)
beauty in the breakdown
 
Location: Chapel Hill, NC
I leave mine on 24/7. I use it a lot, and dont like waiting for it to boot up. The only time I reboot is if I am switching OS (my main machine dual boots XP and Mandrake) or if it has been on for a long time and Windows starts sucking a lot more memory than it should.
__________________
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
--Plato
sailor is offline  
Old 11-21-2003, 11:29 PM   #6 (permalink)
Go Cardinals
 
soccerchamp76's Avatar
 
Location: St. Louis/Cincinnati
Shut it down before i go to bed so that it is off the whole night and the most of the next day when I am at school. No point in leaving is running 24/7 if I am only going to be using it 1-4 hours of the day.
__________________
Brian Griffin: Ah, if my memory serves me, this is the physics department.
Chris Griffin: That would explain all the gravity.
soccerchamp76 is offline  
Old 11-22-2003, 06:22 AM   #7 (permalink)
Psycho
 
I remember hearing that while your computer starts up, it takes a lot of power to do so, so it's better to just leave it on if you'll be back later, is that true?
Flesh is offline  
Old 11-22-2003, 07:23 AM   #8 (permalink)
Psycho
 
Blistex's Avatar
 
Location: Tiger I Turret
When the maxtor 30GB 5400RPM drives came out I bought 3 off of a shady character about 5 years ago. For 4 years they were in my computer, and it (in it's many incarnations) was literally running for those 4 years straight. I sold all three off to my friends last year and they're still all running.

If a computer component is gonna bust of its own accord it's probably gonna either crap out on you in the first year or after a few years when it's worthless.

Leaving it on or off shouldn't really make a difference, it your baying your own electric bill turn it off since it's eating up gobs of money.

p.s. computer speakers should be turned off when not in use since they (the newer larger PC speakers) have a bad habit of wearing out rather fast.
Blistex is offline  
Old 11-22-2003, 07:36 AM   #9 (permalink)
Tilted Cat Head
 
Cynthetiq's Avatar
 
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
Mean Time Before Failure...

wonder why they track that statistic on hard drives and other crucial components? Because there are some upper and lower limits to when these parts are going to fail.

Quote:
What is MTBF?
MTBF is the "mean time between failures," that is, the average elapsed time that passes before a failure occurs in a batch of drives under intense test conditions.

The initial inclination of those unfamiliar with the spec is to interpret it as the average expected lifespan of a single drive and either dismiss it as meaningless (bad) or assume this means their favorite drive will last decades (bad).

The SCSI-standard MTBF rating of 1.2 million hours, for example, does not mean that the average unit will run for 137 years before it fails. Likewise, the other extreme would be 1.2 million drives operating for one hour before one failed- equally unlikely.

Rather, MTBF is a product of a large quantity of drives (numbering in the hundreds or low thousands, perhaps) and the number of hours that such a batch runs before experiencing a failure. If a manufacturer places 1000 units to the test and on average manages to squeeze 50 days of operation out of the batch between each individual unit failure, that firm's product has achieved an MTBF of at least 1.2 million hours.

Sometimes, acceleration factors are used for calculating the MTBF of a drive. These are derived from standard statistical methods. Running the test at elevated temperatures beyond "normal," for example, will reduce the time needed to meet a certain number of test hours. Of course, the accuracy of this acceleration factor has a large effect on the final derived MTBF number.

That said, there's obviously some room for maneuver left in a "sweet spot" where firms may attempt to achieve target MTBF by either using more drives or more hours- there's no set unit count or elapsed time that we may regard as standard.

MTBF should be regarded as a minimum statement of reliability by the manufacturer. These days, no manufacturer will spec an enterprise-class drive below 1.2 million hours. Likewise, no firm will bother with MTBF less than 400,000 for a desktop-class disk. It is this consistency, rather than the spec's lack of meaning, that allows one to gloss over these claims.
link
__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.
Cynthetiq is offline  
Old 11-22-2003, 06:07 PM   #10 (permalink)
Psycho
 
The modern (after the ATX) AT systems will "soft off" and the connected components (monitor) will snooze. External drives will park and snooze also. There is no current flow unless excited by an external input (moving the mouse, pressing a switch). The circuits that control such are registered in milli amps, voltage is not a major factor.
poof is offline  
Old 11-22-2003, 07:12 PM   #11 (permalink)
Vanishing, like I do..
 
Location: Austin, TX
Watch what hard drives you buy, I think it's IBM that changed their Deskstar's "max running hours per day" or what not to like 12 or 16.. Whereas most are 24.
__________________
Toy-like people make me boy-like.
meff is offline  
 

Tags
leave

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



All times are GMT -8. The time now is 02:53 AM.

Tilted Forum Project

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
© 2002-2012 Tilted Forum Project

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360