To leave running or to not leave running.....

[boojum]

For a lack of a better forum I have picked this one as it does relate to home systems.

My question is, I have two older servers (a Dell 2300 and a Dell 2400, SCSI HDD's, duel Proc's and Pwr etc) that I have in the passed left running 24x7....for various reasons. But during the day they are never used and I was planning on powering them down during times that they will not be utilised. Anybody see any detrimental affect on the Hardware in doing this. Hate to have my non-replacable(Because of cost restraints) SCSI HDD's fail cos of the constant starting and stopping.

 

[jap0nes]

uhhhhhhhh i dont think any kind of hd would last longer if on 24/7... i agree that they would last less longer if powered on and off several times a day... but one time a day would not reduce its lifetime... also leaving it off would save you a lot of energy - and cash

 

[turpit]

uhhhhhhhh i dont think any kind of hd would last longer if on 24/7... i agree that they would last less longer if powered on and off several times a day... but one time a day would not reduce its lifetime... also leaving it off would save you a lot of energy - and cash

I dont think wusy's talking about platter wear. But powered on or down, if the HDD's at idle and the heads are parked, there is no platter wear so its a moot point. In a powered on idle or powered on parked state the HDD is only in a state of readiness. Turning the HDD on and off, will force the heads to un park and engage the platters with evey push of the button, thus increasing wear over the constanly on, or a constantly off state. Other items in the computer, namely the cooling fans will see increased wear in a constanly on state. Pon/Poff cycles are what kill solid state electronics

 

[FLA94FD]

They will last longer if they stay spinning 25-50%, but HD are cheap and you will likely spend on power then you will get from longer life.

 

[WOWchamp]

SCSI HDD's arent cheap....

 

[gambit6259]

If really don't need them running during the day I would shut them off and save a couple of bucks on electricty.

 

[Randy77]

I have a friend who runs a dozen very old SCSI drives on a server in his basement. Total capacity is probably less than 40GB. I've always wondered why.

You could always throw VMWare on one of the servers and replace your stack of SCSI drives with a single $100 IDE or SATA drive with the same capacity as your SCSI drives combined. Then run both servers out of one box on a single IDE drive (or mirror two if redundancy is needed) . Yes, I'm making an assumption on the size of your SCSI drives, but $100 will get you a very nice SATA 250GB drive. I've never seen a SCSI drive that size.

I'm running three servers on a single box with VMWare and it works wonderfully... and my wife no longer gives me the look that says 'Why do we have so many computers in the furnace room?'. It also consolidated two seldom used servers (one linux, one windows) with one that gets more use (another linux).

 

[Pain]

A friend of mine just did some tests to determine computer power usage while left on over night. The long and short of it is that a typical computer left on unused for an additional 14 hours a day will cost roughly $100 a year. Your mileage may vary.

I also think that most machines will last longer physically [in most cases] than their usefull life, so any wear and tear caused by powering them on/off once a day isn't a concern.

 

[Anoobis]

I'd like to add to this question.

Although it doesn't really pertain to a server/SCSI setup, is it a good idea to use the "power saving feature" of Windows to have it "shut down" the drives after a certain period of inactivity?

 

[Pain]

I personally don't use it, because the power used by a disk already spinning is negligable. If it's on a laptop then you might want to use it, but then for me I think if you aren't using a laptop for a long period of time when it's on battery power then you should turn it off anyway.

 

[delanooch]

I think he is testing out the guruness of this forum boy and girls!

I always turn my machine off unless i am farming but you have to ask yourself how long do you need these things to last ? 2 more years? 6? Its your call dude. If these servers are already I'm guessing now 4 years old + i think you have more than just the hard drives to worry about failing, you might be at the lifespan of other components.

Give us more detailed info about what you have and the environment they are in 24x7 because dust and heat, humidity, and the owners lack of care can affect the life of a server.

 

[farmkid]

Back in the days when everyone was worried about Y2K, I remember hearing about a concern that might affect you now. People were planning on restarting their servers as part of their Y2K preparations. However, there was concern that some computers that had been running 24X7 for years might not be able to restart because the hard drive heads hadn't been parked in so long a time. The thought was that some gunk had built up in all that time and the heads would get stuck in it when they parked. I don't know if that ever actually happened, but I remember people being concerned about it.

 

[boojum]

Cheers all for the thoughts, Yes the servers are old 4+ years so the HDD were my main concern but not the only concern (other than the power bill). Sounds as if any affect will be minor and poffpon will not make that much difference.

I was asked the general config and use...
both servers are 2k3 std. One is a DC with the usual DNS, DHCP and Backup software, also used as the F & P server. the other is a RRAS and has been know to be on the P2P network, 2 NIC's etc. Load on both is generally light even when being used. Working in IT during the day I regularly go home and "Playtest theories" with the environment - but usually on VM servers. These two I generally leave alone as a basis for the environment.
SCSI HDD are quite expensive...even the old ones, In the servers I have the following
server 1 has 6x9.1 GB (2 in Raid 1, 4 in raid 5)
Server 2 has 2x9.1 GB in Raid 1 and 4x 36 GB in Raid 0
I have a couple of spare 9.1GB disks so raid 5 it was, but I have no spare 36GB disk ...no point in Raid 5

 

[sandmannight]

I leave my two comps running 24/7 but turn them off during storms and they have lasted for 2 years without problems

 

[sandmannight]

dang you are talking about servers...sorry for posting