Re: Shut down or leave on?

On 8/28/07, Richard Carter <carter.r.a.l@gmail.com> wrote:
> [...]
> In the past I have always shut my Debian system down over night etc for 3
> reasons:
>
> 1) I put backups on my 80GB external HD which I usually leave shut down even
> when I boot the rest of the system. It's about the same age as my internal
> 160GB HD so I hoped to reduce the probability of it failing at the same time
> as the internal HD by starting it less often.

google has made a nice survey on thousands of HDs for some years. They measured the effect of temperature and time on the failure rate. Don't have the link handy but do check for it. It will give you the answers you need regarding your HD

> 2) I hoped to reduce the probability of being hacked by shutting down,
> although I do have a firewall installed.

other factors are WAY MORE important than the amount of time you're on line - you can get this reason of your list

> 3) I thought it was a waste of electricity, and money, to have a machine
> running that wasn't being used.

it is but if you find a lot of other reasons to keep it alive then you probably want to check ways to minimize power consumption. Automatic adjustment of CPU frequency, automaticaly powering off HDs and monitor when not in use, funs wich adjust RPM according to temperature etc

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