Standby if away from my desk for a few minutes such as loo stop or dinner. I turn it off when I go to bed as its connected to a multi-power point surge protector & my network switch is on that too. At night it lights up like an Xmas tree & I'm used to sleeping in the dark so that's the reason why for the off.
PC's and/or laptops are only on when actually being used or downloading games (yay forgetting to change sleep settings on my laptop..). NAS is on 24/7 although I recall it goes into a lower power state when not used for a while (overnight after backups & when we are at work during the day). Need to check on the Qnap OS on the settings.
All my personal computers are shutdown the moment I stop using them.
My work computers are powered off at the end of the day too.
At my job, I just happen to manage most of the firms computers.
Physical devices, they are checked for uptime. Prompt staff to reboot depending on a number of criteria. Laptops get a more aggressive policy. They shutdown when not plugged in and idol / lid shut for more then an hour. This policy come about indirectly. We had a higher then expected laptop failure rate. We figured out devices were being left powered on in handbags etc., and kept repeatedly overheating until they broke.
On the virtualization front, I power off persistent VDIs once a week. There are a number of rules though to protect outlying cases, e.g. if a user is working late on Saturday night (or Friday if they are based in the Middle East), I don't reboot. This changes though if they've not rebooted / shutdown for over a week and I force the shutdown to happen. I could shutdown more often but it adds additional overhead to login times!
I was working this out the other day, mine was left on all the time previous but now I turn it off. I dont use it in the morning so for the 24 hours it was on it was probably only being used for perhaps 6 or 7 if I was to round that up to 10 thats 14 hours a day that its not being used. It recon it costs about 4 pence an hour to run so thats 56p a day so about 15 quid a month saved by turning it off. Newer Pcs I would imagine could be set to idle and not draw so much.
Now that I had had a smart meter for a few years. Theres a clear difference in leaving stuff on even on standby. Ok so it amounts to what £80 or so a year maybe a bit more. But that's a tank of fuel or several visits to the butcher, so it's worthwhile. I've even started to shutdown my servers at night after their backup. It all makes a difference... Although ethically I think it's the right thing to do.
Mine draws about 1.3w when sleeping and anywhere from 40-80w when idling on the desktop. I guess the amount depends on motherboard and PSU. Going by my electricity tariff, leaving it sleeping overnight for 12 hours a day costs me £0.23 a year. I can live with that.
Thought I'd just do a few tests seeing as I had the power meter plugged in anyway. So, the figures are:
Sleep==============2.5w
Just Powered Down=====1.5w (ie just clicked ShutDown)
Rocker Switch on PSU off==0.9w (ie still plugged into the mains with the mains switch turned on)
Totally unplugged=======0.0w
So the difference between sleep and just powered down is only 1w Even powered down with the rocker switch flicked off but still plugged into the mains with the mains turned on is a difference of 1.6w So there's no real difference between sleep and powered down unless you also turn off at the wall socket!
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