Mine mostly stay powered up, other than as might be necessary for maintenance. They're all connected to power via surge-protected, voltage-regulated backup power supplies, and all network and phonline connections are surge protected as well. Their monitors shut off after a period of non-use, and the machines "Go to Sleep" a while after that, with fan and drive noise thus rendered essentially insignificant, if not entirely absent. All are configured to allow their respective network interfaces to Wake" the particular machine from "Sleep" if pinged from another machine on the network, which is behind both hardware and software firewalls.
Everything has plenty of ventilation, the air in their rooms is kept circulatin' and relatively dust free by air cleaners, and the devices themselves get regular physical cleanouts. Dust, grime, and crud are the enemy of electronics, and proper ventilation is critical. My approach is to keep gear clean and give it plenty of fresh air to breath.
In sleep state, with monitors off, power consumption is very low, less for instance than that of a conventional picture-tube TV or even many Audio/Video receivers and PVRs in their normal "Off" mode, which really is not off at all but actually a semi-powered "Standby" state in which all that is powered off is the final output stage and the panel displays. In fact, the tuners, processors, pre-amps, and power amps in my A/V suite are left powered up 24/7 as well; when idle, they consume very little more power that they would if in "Standby". Admittedly, I'm from the "Old School", havin' gotten into electronics well before the transistor became ubiquitous.
A precept datin' from the time of tube circuits is "If it don't turn, let it burn", which means, essentially, the only things that should be shut off are motors - all other circuits should be left energized. A trivia sidelight; the original meaning of "integrated circuit" was a device or component which used both tubes and transistors.
Generally, for any electrical device, the highest-stress period, and frequently the highest, if momentary, power consumption will occur immediately upon start-up from a fully de-energized state. Have you ever noticed a lightbulb that fails usually does so right when you turn it on?
Additional, if lesser, stress ocurrs in almost any circuit as its stabilizes followin' initial power-up, a process which can take several minutes - capacitors hafta form and charge, motors hafta come up to speed, coils and relays hafta energize, that sorta thing. There also is the consideration of thermal shock; expansion and contraction due to heatin' and coolin' stresses everything from printed circuits to chassis components. A device allowed to remain on generally has an essentially steady-state internal temperature, minimizin' thermal shock.
Even now, with fully solid-state circuits, the most common failure node for electrical/electronic devices is the power on/power off cycle - if its gonna fail, thats when its most likely gonna do it. I have computers nearly a decade old, and Audio/Video gear much older than that, all of which have been gettin' along just fine livin' by my rules. I fix stuff all the time for folks who have other rules.
Regular defrag-and-reboot is just plain good housekeepin', btw. A fragmented drive works harder than a compactly organized one, and Operatin' System restarts clear .dlls, services, and processes that did not terminate with their associated application's exit, and applications which, though not in use, remain "resident" in memory, consumin' resources to no purpose.
And I enjoy the lightshow, too - a room asparkle with a buncha multi-colored LEDs is a happy room :mrgreen :wink:
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace