Do Any Companies Power Down At Night? Slashdot discussion

Here is a nice discussion on Slashdot about powering down computers at night.

The discussion provides some excellent information, from reports of energy savings up to 33%, to reduced risk to computer network security.

Apart from the obvious benefits of saving power, there are a lot of facts people don’t understand.

1. Do computers break down if you power them up frequently? Depends on what you call frequently. If you power down every three minutes, then yeah. But if you power down every day, then it would in fact increase the life of your computer equipment, as there would be less wear and tear on all the moving components etc.

2. Is it safer security wise? Heck yeah. Every minute your computer is not online is a minute your computer is absolutely safe from lurking online dangers.

And the amount of energy it saves? Huge.. Huge savings. Today’s computers consume anywhere from 90 Watts to 300 Watts or even more depending on computer type, the jobs executed on the computer etc. This is excluding the power consumption of the monintor. Switching it off will not only save monitor power, but will also save in space conditioning energy costs.

More often than not, conservation measures like this are overlooked in corporate world. This is the problem with the system. IT admin is not paying electricity bills, so this issue rarely rises on his/ her radar.

So, if you ain’t using it, turn it down baby. It’s good for you. It’s good for mama earth.

~ by Kedar on January 21, 2008.