How often do you shut down a DAW?

In the days when chips were plugged (no solder) into the boards, there was legitimate concern that repeated cycles of heating and cooling would loosen the connections. That is much less of a concern with soldered joints. The only devices that suffer on-of stress in a modern computer are fans and the hard drives, and the general wear of leaving them running continuously for many more hours than needed is probably as bad as spin-up. Do you leave your television on 24/7 so it will last longer?

http://www.deq.state.or.us/lq/pubs/factsheets/sw/ComputersMonitors.pdf

P.S. If you have any doubt about your hard drive clone it and replace it. You will save enough energy turning off your computer when not in use to buy a new hard drive in less than 7 years.

Also do you seriously plan to be using the same computer in 15 years?

I never leave the telly on if its not been watched. No I don't see myself using the same pc in 15 years.

I'm only concerned about the fact that powering up(spinning up) a hard drive very often could cause premature failing. 

Also I was just curious on what people do when it comes to shutting down a computer.

Cheers

Peter.

Generally for a DAW you disable all the unwanted background functions and power saving is usually one of them.
Normally these setting will shut down your hard drive when not in use for more than ?? say 2 hours.
My 2 computers that are not used for DAW have power saving set to
Monitor off -15 min.
stand by 30 min
Hibernate 2 hours.
I sut them down every couple of days because there are reasons you need to do this which I cannot recall this early in the morning on 1 cup of coffee.

My DAWs are treated like all my studio gear. There on when I'm working and off when not.
I have a master AC plug that is pulled when storms are happening and I'm away for a longer time.
I change my hard drives at least every 2 years.
The old drives go in office computers as back up drives or in a USB case.
New drives are always upgraded for the plain fact the new drives get bigger and faster etc. I've never paid more than $100.

The thing about turning off a computer from time to time is based on some sort of cashe that the machine uses ... I think it stores the data in the cashe in it's RAM...filling up as it does what it does. The seek times slow the machine down, so shutting it off clears the cashe.... I don't know how that plays now days with the faster computers and larger RAM......


Anyway... my take on this topic is... turn it on when you need it, and when you finish...shut it off.  Leaving it on uses electricity, and creates heat inside the box and wear on the components. Heat degrades the parts and IMHO there is no need to let it set there and run.

Computer do not power-off, even when powered down. This is so they can be remotely started via the net card. This means power is always supplied to the net interface, even when net booting is disabled in BIOS.

I have ALL the audio stuff connected to a Furman power conditioner. This has a master power switch. I use it.

Computers are more susceptible to power spikes when on. All mine are off every night. All are connected to power strips which are switched off after the computers power down.

The audio computer is set as follows:
Screen blanker: never
Monitors off: never
Disks off: never
Hibernate: never
Special Power stuff: never

I power on and off the computer and all the audio equipment when used.

All of the other computers (5) are set as:
Screen blanker: 20 minutes
Monitors off:  40 minutes
Disks off: 20 minutes
Hibernate: 2 hours
Special Power stuff: set in bios to auto

My main off office computer is set to not hibernate because it is used for all the public docs and pictures,... including all audio related documents, and reference materials, since I may want to learn something when the audio computer is not on.

But, your concern about the disk is valid. Even though the mean-time-between-failure for disks is over 1,000,000 hours, some are DOA. And some just quit. Last year we had our dedicated web server powered-down to replace the backup drive with a larger bit. The OS drive would not spin. Very sad 4 days.

Do this now, and regularly:
Run a windows full disk scan. Then download an ISO for the disk from the manufacturer's website, run the full test. This will check disk integrity, SMART, surface problems. If needed get a utility like Spinrite and run it at level 5, which will recover data if need be, and mark bad sectors,...

All disks have surface faults. Most are marked as such by the factory low level format. Some can develop. I have had good luck with Spinrite fixing these disks and some have lasted for years afterward.

Even though NTFS is better than 98 at maintaining the file system, it can become corrupted. At least weekly I run a basic check-disk for ALL drives.

J

And don't forget that a switch only kills the hot and that power surges and lightning can still pass through to your equipment.
PULL THE PLUG! or use a switch box that has all three wires disconnected like they have for industrial stuff. 
Personally I don't see the point in scanning disks all the time.
I've never lost one bit of data in 25 years. Spend your time making a backup.
And hard drives are like all consumer products so you are well advised to do a little research before you purchase.
I buy my parts from NCIX and they have a user forum where you can quickly find out whats good and what is not so good.

It is good to scan the file system regularly. Stuff happens.

And: an interesting bit:

Intending to add another fan for hardrives, (temps range from 32 to 38), I find this info:
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive
 
A common misconception is that a colder hard drive will last longer than a hotter hard drive. The Google study seems to imply the reverse—"lower temperatures are associated with higher failure rates". Hard drives with S.M.A.R.T.-reported average temperatures below 27 °C (80.6 °F) had higher failure rates than hard drives with the highest reported average temperature of 50 °C (122 °F), failure rates at least twice as high as the optimum S.M.A.R.T.-reported temperature range of 36 °C (96.8 °F) to 47 °C (116.6 °F).[53]

So, no need to add another fan.  Much rejoicing.  Rather, how do I increase the drive temps, to extend life?

J

Thank you.
Been wanting one of those.
But couldn't find the link.