Should I hibernate my desktop?

[archcommus]

At home, I turn my system off at night because I wake up in the morning and go straight to work for 9 hours, so it goes for about 17 hours without being used. With the already high electricity costs in the summer from using A/C and stuff, it just makes sense. I realize that I could hibernate instead for faster boot-ups but it doesn't really matter.

Now, the situation at my university. I live in a university-provided apartment so I don't pay an electric bill. I go on and off my computer a LOT more frequently than I do at home so being able to get going instantly is a must. I realize I could hibernate my desktop overnight, and resuming doesn't take too long, but it's still quicker and requires less effort to just leave it on normally and in the morning only turn the monitor on and move the mouse. If I hibernated it, I'd really only be doing it for my hard drive, I guess, but as you all know we still debate whether an HDD prefers spinning 24/7 or being powered up and down daily.

So is my current habit absolutely fine or should I still be hibernating every night? And no I'm not concerned with the amount of energy my desktop being off would save the city of Pittsburgh. 😛

 

[Fayd]

the power on/off cycle is alot more stressful to the computer components than just letting it sit there. besides, the extra write cycles of putting the contents of your memory into HDD isnt going to be very healthy either.

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: Fayd
the power on/off cycle is alot more stressful to the computer components than just letting it sit there. besides, the extra write cycles of putting the contents of your memory into HDD isnt going to be very healthy either.

Yeah see that's a good argument for leaving it on 24/7 without hibernation if power consumption is not a concern. But others will say it's better for the HDD to be off periodically and the additional writing of a gig or so a day has minimal to no effects.