Hibernate or Shut down?
 

I've been using the Hibernate feature on the Slate instead of doing a full shutdown. Usually on my PCs and Laptops I've been doing a full shutdown. I think I'll start using the Hibernate.

How about the rest of you?

I've let laptops go into Hibernate for years now. I'll shut them down if I don't plan to use it for a few days.

Hibernate.

You should only need to actually restart when you have certain types of updates. Assuming yoru drivers / software don't cause issues or have memory leaks, the OS should be good for long periods of time.

I'm typing on a laptop right now that hadn't been restarted for a couple of months until an update a few days ago. I just use sleep with a timeout where it goes to hibernate after a length of time so it starts up even quicker.

During the daytime between use: Sleep
Overnight: Hibernate
Gone a few days: Shut down

Done it this way for years......

I like a complete shut down daily. It dumps the ram, kills all of background idle processes i.e. all of the 'remnants'. I also typically flush browser history, passwords, logins etc on exit where possible. Might be overkill but I have always done it & it makes me feel better. ;)

Ian

Is there more wear on the hard drive from shutting down overnight and re-starting in the morning? Call me a Greenie, but I would think the shutdown uses less power, at least.

The best thing you can do with a computer is either keep it on all the time or keep it off all the time. All the bits inside hate being cycled.

Max, it is not uncommon for a drive to fail the way yours did. I had a server that was on 24/7 for some period of time. I decided to bump up the RAM, so I had to turn it off. One of the drives failed on shutdown. Had I not decided on the RAM upgrade, it would have probably lived longer - but it was only a matter of time.

a cold boot (total shut down) is a good idea periodically for all those reasons plus an error check the system runs (or used to way back in the past anyway)

in the winter, I do it only about weekly tho (waste elec. will help heat the room so no big deal)

I hear you about electronic failure on power up. You are right, the stress of power up is a common failure time. When we do hifi shows, we turn everything on during setup & we don't power down until knockdown. Our motto is always: If it turns on, leave it on.

With HDs though, you can hear them wind up after a hibernation so I can't see that being too different from a normal power up cycle.

Ian

On my servers, they never spin down - unless there is a specific reason. I used to keep my laptop on all the time, only having the screen turn off. After I installed Win7, I never bothered to change the settings and now I actually force it to go to sleep mode/hibernation.

On my work computer I usually shut it off completely every night. As of late, I have been hitting the hibernate option. I just kill any programs running beforehand. My home PC usually runs constantly. I have it set to hibernate after two hours of non use. I never leave a browser open for long periods either. (unattended)

I generally just shut my personal pc down when I'm not using it but it's a gaming machine and puts out a lot of heat. If I'm down in that room I'll leave it on in lieu of turning on the heat it really does put out a ton of heat especially under load.
A cheap 600w psu, radeon 4890 and an am6000+. It's got proper ventilation but I feel it's better to just shut it down than continually expose it to high temps.

There's an option in power management to specify hdd shutdown. Our servers at work stay on 24/7. For an average desktop though I can't imagine it makes a huge difference.

I'm wireless and have the laptop set to go to sleep after 5 minutes of inactivity. Requires password to wake up.
For security I just log off the airport.
No airport, no connection.

I've had about 10 laptops in my career. HP, Gateway, IBM, now Dell. I've never owned one that didn't BSOD at least once every couple weeks and some every few days (although my current Dell is better than most, knock on wood). So I "shut down" pretty regularly whether I like it or not!

Same here. Ive always cleaned out and shut mine down after Im done for the day or night. But more and more I'm hearing just leave it on.

Funny . . . I have only crashed Win 7 twice since I have been using it (August). Both times were a failed wake-up from hibernation . . .

Ian

I don't have such choices on my shop computer (Win98SE) but I turn it off every day. Home machine usually stays on.
Jim