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Cold-hot-cold-hot thermal cycles are the bane of electronics. Heating and cooling causes expansion and contraction that affects the components and their joins (solder joints). This cycling is one of the single biggest causes of 'wear and tear' on electrical/electronic/electromechanical components. If you can afford the juice, and you use them often/regularly, leave 'em on. If you don't use 'em very much, turn 'em off.
For those who leave laptops on, is that plugged in or on battery? What if an electrical storm passes through? Even a UPS might be compromised by a lightening strike.
With decades of working on computers, I have seen a lot of damage caused by lightening and other electrical disturbances to computers and other electronics, some that resembled crispy critters.
However I have never seen any damage to any equipment that was totally protected by surge suppressors (which includes phone lines), or that were connected to a UPS. The surge or UPS were toast, but the devices (computers, servers, routers, switches, etc.) were fine.
Cold-hot-cold-hot thermal cycles are the bane of electronics. Heating and cooling causes expansion and contraction that affects the components and their joins (solder joints). This cycling is one of the single biggest causes of 'wear and tear' on electrical/electronic/electromechanical components. If you can afford the juice, and you use them often/regularly, leave 'em on. If you don't use 'em very much, turn 'em off.
and combined with the 'in rush' of current when devices are power on, is the greatest time of failure of electronic components, followed by external causes, mainly overheating due to fan failure or a too hot environment, and electrical disturbances, surges and spikes.
I've two Seagate drives that are almost 10 years old now, computer stays on 24/7/365. I do it for convenience.
I think if you're going to come to any conclusions you need a pretty complicated formula that is going to consider energy use, depreciation value (eg my drives can be purchased for about $30 new) etc.
For those who leave laptops on, is that plugged in or on battery? What if an electrical storm passes through? Even a UPS might be compromised by a lightening strike.
Um... if you leave it on whilst on battery it will eventually shut off when the battery dies.
If an electrical storm passes though, I make popcorn and watch the lightening.
And yes, a UPS could easily be "compromised" by a lightening strike... which is kind of the point of a UPS. Worst case scenario a UPS will die and in doing so, it will protect your equipment.
But that rarely happens. A UPS is designed to take a surge... that's what it is for.
I really don't worry about storms and I have had lightening strike my house before. It knocked some bricks off my chimney and blew a port on my router and the network card in my PC. Replaced network card and used a different port on the router and it was fine. Strangely the modem survived.
For those who leave laptops on, is that plugged in or on battery? What if an electrical storm passes through? Even a UPS might be compromised by a lightening strike.
We leave them on 24/7
I don't see how a stack of batteries that are not connected to the circuit or the power grid being effected by a lighting strike.
The UPS only comes into play after the power goes out.
I suppose if the building is on fire it could be compromised but that is what they are designed for, if the power should go out for some reason, like a lighting strike.
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and combined with the 'in rush' of current when devices are power on, is the greatest time of failure of electronic components, followed by external causes, mainly overheating due to fan failure or a too hot environment, and electrical disturbances, surges and spikes.
