Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:59:45 +0100 From: Anthony Atkielski <atkielski.anthony@wanadoo.fr> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Leaving a Computer Running ? Message-ID: <15010522197.20050206115945@wanadoo.fr> In-Reply-To: <200502052246.57343.ken_jennings@bellsouth.net> References: <200502051745.25937.hindrich@worldchat.com> <15210109162.20050206001338@wanadoo.fr> <200502052246.57343.ken_jennings@bellsouth.net>
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Kenneth Jennings writes: KJ> Ah. I bet there are more than a few people here who can repeat a KJ> horror story about what happened when a long running server was shut KJ> down. Yes, I'm one of them. Many people believe that if a fan or disk drive is showing signs of impending failure, it should be left running continuously, as continuous running is much less stressful than a stop/start cycle, and the stress of stopping and starting the drive might be more than it can take, whereas the lower stress of just running might still be within its tolerance. Of course, you have to replace the drive or fan eventually, but sometimes that cannot be done instantly. KJ> I remember several years ago we had a HP server at work that had KJ> been running nonstop for about three years. One day, due to a major KJ> electrical upgrade in the computer room, the sysadmin had to cold KJ> start it. Three hard drives would not come back up. Everyone except KJ> the sysadmins had a four-day weekend. I have a crusty old server here that has drives that occasionally make noise. I'm afraid to turn it off. They don't make the kind of drives it uses anymore. I'd like to move legacy stuff off the machine and install another FreeBSD, but the floppy drive stopped working as well and the machine refuses to boot directly from CD, even though it's equipped to do so. KJ> I have a file server in the house that runs continuously. It sits on KJ> an UPS. Everything else is shut down at night. My FreeBSD server runs continuously because it has to: it holds my Web site, my e-mail server, my DNS server, my NTP server, etc. The other machines run continuously because it's more convenient and because I worry about machines not coming back up again if I power-cycle them. Fortunately, I built this latest FreeBSD server myself from quality components and hopefully it has many years of reliable 24/7 service ahead of it. Budget constraints forced me to buy a cheapo predecessor and it failed abruptly when the CPU fan gave out. -- Anthony
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