Is leaving your computer on all the time (24/7) better for hard drive?

[Layback Bear]

To save all that typing I will just cut and past post #22 which I believe to be correct.
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I'm layed back and simple. Years ago when hard drives clanged and banged doing their/there job to a degree their/there was a concern with all the charts and grafts and how you used your hard drive. I don't believe that todays hard drives have that concern. Use your system as you see fit. If the hard drive fail it will not be because of the way your use it. Hard drive life span is controlled by the quality and standards it was made by.

 

[westom]

Hard drive life span is controlled by the quality and standards it was made by.

Drive life expectancy is mostly defined by manufacturing defects. Power cycling myths are disputed by even by specification numbers. Two posters who cannot defend their claims with facts, instead, post cheap shots and emotional tirades. As if attacking the messenger proves anything.

Layman can quickly identify mythical claims: no facts and no numbers. Claims made only from observation and speculation are junk science reasoning (as also demonstrated by DeaconFrost's light bulb example in post 49 and exposed by bobafetthotmail in post 50).

Manufacturer specs say power cycling is destructive ... 39 or more years later. IOW power cycling is irrelevant. Manufacturing defects (ie quality and production standards) explain most drive failures. Neither power cycling nor cheap shots explain drive failures.

 

[Wrend]

Never mind. I'd rather not get involved.

 

[Britton30]

Hard drive life span is controlled by the quality and standards it was made by.

Drive life expectancy is mostly defined by manufacturing defects. Power cycling myths are disputed by even by specification numbers. Two posters who cannot defend their claims with facts, instead, post cheap shots and emotional tirades. As if attacking the messenger proves anything.

Layman can quickly identify mythical claims: no facts and no numbers. Claims made only from observation and speculation are junk science reasoning (as also demonstrated by DeaconFrost's light bulb example in post 49 and exposed by bobafetthotmail in post 50).

Manufacturer specs say power cycling is destructive ... 39 or more years later. IOW power cycling is irrelevant. Manufacturing defects (ie quality and production standards) explain most drive failures. Neither power cycling nor cheap shots explain drive failures.

Well, quit the cheap shots then, LOL! I've seen no supporting evidence for any of your junk science claims while you try to impress us with your vast knowledge of everything that uses electricity. I think your knowledge is half vast at best.

 

[Layback Bear]

Well I didn't intend a cheep shot.

 

[westom]

Well I didn't intend a cheep shot.

You neither posted nor received one. Two cheap shot artists make accusations and claims without facts. They insist power cycling does that damage.

Manufacturing defects, that you defined, are the reason for most failures - as so many others also posted.

Answer to the OP's question was also provided by Layback Bear. Power cycling does not do that damage despite conclusions based only in wild speculation. Manufacturing defects (averted by quality and standards) define most failures. An answer to the OP's original question was that simple.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Power cycling does not do that damage despite conclusions based only in wild speculation.

Why not end the debate with some proof? Seems like you enjoy belittling others who don't completely agree with you, yet you've done nothing to support your claims, which can be easily considered "wild" by your own criteria. Many forums are filled with people who try to boast and belittle others to boost their own reputation, so why not prove you aren't like that?

 

[Goji73]

Sorry to bump this thread but I thought I'd ask since it goes back to source of where this thread started... Does power-cycling (persumably, turning a computer on and off) have any effect on a computer's motherboard? Does it wear it down? Or am I just repeating the same question in this thread already?

According to my source, he claims that it does but I thought I'd ask since I assume a dying hard drive and a computer's motherboard are separate issue.

For anyone happening to read this, here are the photos again of where these question stemmed from:

This screen would appear right after the "ACER" logo disappeared, this happens whenever I would turn on my computer:

When the problem first came, this was the error message that appeared.

 

[Layback Bear]

Goji73 here is how simple it is. Todays PC's are designed to do either shut down when not in use or let run 24/7 if one has the desire to do so. You will always be able to find somebody on some website to tell you different.
Of course you will need a quality PC with quality hardware and proper cooling. To buy or build a computer and then sit around worrying about using it doesn't make a hill of beans to me. If by chance a piece of hardware got missed in the quality control during manufacturing it will of course fail no matter how you use your computer. The only positive thing that I can think of is if the computer is off it doesn't use electricity and doesn't create heat. Many members run computers 24/7 without any problems and I shut mine off when not in use without problems. Choose a method and don't worry about it.

 

[westom]

According to my source, he claims that it does but I thought I'd ask since I assume a dying hard drive and a computer's motherboard are separate issue.

Did your source provide numbers with that answer? Or just recite a popular old wive's tale? One who had to learn this stuff, read datasheets, designed hardware, and traced failures because each failure had to be explained, posted:

So the question, "Is power cycling destructive?" One who said so only using speculation and subjective reasoning said yes. Instead, let's read numbers. ...

Most defects are manufacturing defects. Completely unrelated to power cycling.

What do digital electronics do when powered? Power cycle. Off and on repeatedly. If power cycling is destructive, then leaving it on is also destructive. When is strain greatest? Each time a transistor switches, strain on the PN junction is so large as to even emit a small IR pulse. Did other 'sources' discuss that? And provide numbers? Or repeat what someone told them?

 

[bobafetthotmail]

Does power-cycling (persumably, turning a computer on and off) have any effect on a computer's motherboard? Does it wear it down? Or am I just repeating the same question in this thread already?

the answer is more or less the same. It will wear it down. Everything wears down with use, and even just time passing wears down things. Point is, as long as it is a quality motherboard, its supposed to endure the stress for decades. More often than not, even trashy mobos greatly outlast their service life and end up gathering dust in my shop's storage, even if still working perfectly.

According to my source, he claims that it does but I thought I'd ask since I assume a dying hard drive and a computer's motherboard are separate issue.

Yes, your source is wrong. They are a completely different thing. HDD failure is relatively common (tech support point of view), mobo failure is very very rare and usually connected to failing PSU or thunderstorms or some external cause.

This screen would appear right after the "ACER" logo disappeared, this happens whenever I would turn on my computer:

Clone that disk on a new one before it dies completely, trash the old one as it can die any moment.
Mobo is fine.

 

[Cr00zng]

Sorry to bump this thread but I thought I'd ask since it goes back to source of where this thread started... Does power-cycling (persumably, turning a computer on and off) have any effect on a computer's motherboard? Does it wear it down? Or am I just repeating the same question in this thread already?

According to my source, he claims that it does but I thought I'd ask since I assume a dying hard drive and a computer's motherboard are separate issue.

The motherboard has no moving parts, but the electronic components (chips) do generate heat. As long as the system has a resonable airflow, the components are designed to withstand temperature changes.

Most chips don't really heat up much and the ones that do, CPU, North Bridge, GPU, etc., they had been designed to withstand wide temperature ranges. For example, here are the temperature ranges for my system:



The ambient temperature was around 20-22 degree Celsius. Note that the temperature for the internal hard drive is pretty close to the ambient temperature, while the external drive is running much warmer.

The CPU and the GPU on the other hand are 4-8 degree Celsius above ambient temperature, which isn't that bad. Playing some games and/or heavy use of the computer can easily push the temperature for the CPU and GPU to the 50's range, which is about 50% more than the idle temperatures.

If it's true that turning on/off the computer would damage the motherboard, using it beyond idling would downright destroy it in a very short timeframe. I for one who has some doubts that it's true...

You are correct that the HDD and motherboard is a separate issue. One the other hand, the power supply could cause damage to the HDD, even if there's no storm in your area...

 

[westom]

You are correct that the HDD and motherboard is a separate issue. One the other hand, the power supply could cause damage to the HDD, even if there's no storm in your area...

Any properly designed power supply, even many years before the original IBM PC existed, could not damage hardware. Due to many functions that make damage virtually impossible.

Heat ICs to ambient temperatures above 100 degrees F (40 C) and not one IC is damaged. Many see the resulting crash. Then assume that is hardware damage. Heat only causes timing changes resulting in failed instruction processing. Cool the IC and nothing changes.

Intel processors have even operated in temperatures as high as 350 degrees F without hardware damage. Semiconductor damage meeans temperatures even higher.

How to find defective semiconductors? Operate the computer in a 100 degree F room. The timing changes causing crashes at 100 degrees F is how to identify and avert failures maybe a year later at 70 degrees F.

That is also how a defective drive might have been found before its warranty expired.

Another failure can be traceable to a defective power supply. Normal is for a defective supply to still boot and run a computer even for months. Heat and a multimeter can also identify that defect long before defective voltages eventually make a disk driver appear to be defective.

Determine what is and is not defective by executing a disk drive manufacturer's (provided for free) diagnostics. Especially informative when executed at higher ambient temperatures. And also at lower (ie 40 degree F) temperature. Temperature is a powerful tool to find defects. Unfortunately, many see the defect. Then blame temperature for what is really a marginal and slowly getting worse hardware.