Better To Leave PC In Sleep When Unused, Or Shut Down?

I have an Acer Desktop PC. I remember someone once telling me on here that it was better to do smart scans on Anti Virus/Malware most of the time rather than full scans, as full scans cause a lot of wear and tear on the hard drive.

This got me thinking what other things I could do to cause less wear and tear on my hard drive or even the whole pc. Generally I start up my pc mid morning and use it on and off a few hours each day, putting it into sleep when not used during daytime. At approx. 11pm, I shut down the pc, and it stays shut down for the next 12 hours until started up again the next day.

Is it best for my pc to continue shutting it down at night, and re-starting it 12 hours later? Or would it be better to leave the pc in sleep mode for those 12 hours?

Thanks for any advice.

I suppose this is a 'subjective' arena. My case : Next year my machine will be 10 years old, I've been all over the web and have only experienced one BSOD due to my goofing up some admin-related work (thank MS for the restore function!). I have never needed to do a re-install of the os or stuff like that. I have always shut off my machine at night. Long ago (the super-slow internet days) there was a period or two I had it running 24/7, for weeks, due to some very slow downloads. As my specs will reveal, there is nothing all that special with this machine, just an off-the-shelf, straight out-of-the-box factory standard pc.

woodbine said:

I remember someone once telling me on here that it was better to do smart scans on Anti Virus/Malware most of the time rather than full scans, as full scans cause a lot of wear and tear on the hard drive.

It actually doesn't matter much, the difference in smart scan versus full scan in hard drive performance is small, I believe. The better alternative is to run smart scans when you have 30 min break from the computer and run full scans when you will not use the computer for the next 3 hours for example.

woodbine said:

Is it best for my pc to continue shutting it down at night, and re-starting it 12 hours later? Or would it be better to leave the pc in sleep mode for those 12 hours?

Yes, shutting down your computer is better than letting it sleep 12 hours. If you have choosed to let your computer sleep 12 hours every night, this means that you will never shutdown it (unless you will do it in day time, which is way bad to be honest). It's a good practice to restart or shutdown your computer once every week if you put it to sleep all the time.

The main point of powering off and shutting down the computer is to do with saving power and look after the components, so I am a believer that this is the best policy to adopt at times when the computer is not in use.

So, what is the point of having a Sleep mode when you have already got this shutdown mode?

Some people believe that it keeps the electronics healthy which seems to me a bit of a misconception in the electronics industry. Computers are made from solid state electronics and solid state technology do not gain from being powered up perennially.

I think that this misconception originally stems from the VT (Vaccuum Tube) Technology which benefits from being 'warmed up' before being put to use. But the misconception could also stem from other consumer electronics, such as fridge or telephones, where their continual operation or service availability benefits from being left powered on during the night.

With sleep mode, the CPU, monitor and disk drive are turned off, while the working memory uses a constant power, allowing the computer to wake up more quickly. The main point of having and using the sleep mode, is if the computer goes to sleep, then it is quicker to resume, than it is to power up from cold start. So, the main purpose of the sleep mode is related to performance as well as energy saving.

Wear and tear on a hard drive is inevitable so the best policy here is to create a backup image of all your valuable files on a separate disk. That backup will then be available after the eventual failure of your main drive.
The hard dive does not need to be powered up when idle. You can use Power Plan settings in Windows to switch off when the disk drives are idle. Here is how Hard Drive - Turn Off Hard Disk Idle or Never - Windows 7 Help Forums. There are only performace resons to leave the hard drive on. Nothing to do with wear and tear.

Keep a hard drive away from magnetic or electrostatic sources will prevent the disk from being accidently erased.
The best way to preserve ALL your components from wear an tear is to fit a good grade power supply, either when starting a custom build or when replacing the generic power supply fitted by most computer manufacturers. A good power supply will include mainline choke and surge overload protection and other quality components to reduce electromagnetic interference.

woodbine said:

This got me thinking what other things I could do to cause less wear and tear on my hard drive or even the whole pc. Generally I start up my pc mid morning and use it on and off a few hours each day, putting it into sleep when not used during daytime. At approx. 11pm, I shut down the pc, and it stays shut down for the next 12 hours until started up again the next day.

Is it best for my pc to continue shutting it down at night, and re-starting it 12 hours later? Or would it be better to leave the pc in sleep mode for those 12 hours?

Thanks for any advice.

I think you already have chosen the best policy, but look at other strategies such as backup policy, power plans and even a new power supply.