Conference hydra::amiga_v1

I don't now, but am interested in what others say.  I have been contemplating
what is the right approach after I get a hard disk.  I am concerned with the the
danger to Amy if it is left on and one of those nasty power hits occurs with a
brownout or oscillating power.  Other than that concern, leaving it on would
seem to be better for the HD and more convenient for use as well.

	Paul

    Sheesh .. I've probably had mine turned off for a total of one day
    in more than a year (have I had it THAT long?).

    	I remember an early version of the Apple LISA S/W that use to pull
    all the files out of their folders on the hard disk, resulting in
    hours of agony restoring and reorganising from backup. This machine
    seemed very sensitive to glitches and spikes but a power conditioner
    helped it a lot. I dont know whether the other Amigas are as reliable
    but my A1000 240volt supply seems to be amazingly forgiving.
    	I have run during Major Damage type Electrical storms doing
    downloads without any hassles (We dont have time charging for local
    calls YET in this country- 20cents for an 8hr. phone call isnt bad!)  
    and the machine has handled being switched off/on accidentally by
    my wife and come up cleanly. How this equation alters with a Hard
    Disk applying substantial load on the supply would be interesting.
    	Also, do the Amiga drives automatically park their heads on
    power-down/off? This could be a something to consider.
    	My viewpoint is nothing succeeds like a good backup strategy,
    I dont think you load a machine as much if you keep it running.
    Electrical devices can & do catch fire (anyone got a VR201 out there?)
    so you have to weigh up your own personal cost/benefit (i.e. less
    risk-potential HD fail V.S. greater risk-potential House cooking).
    I wouldnt, for instance, keep my Vaxmate running continually because
    I can see the Thermals rise from it (I recommend this machine for
    anyone who is into serious popcorn-making or paper-plane flying
    (BUT NOT BOTH THINGS AT ONCE 8^) ), 
    The Amiga is a different proposition but I do switch the monitor
    off when its unattended for any length of time.
    matter.
                                  
    Good cooking,
    	John Baker
    	CSC Sydney.

It's on all the time and if I had a second one, it would be too ( my wife and 
I fight over who gets to use it and when ).  I have about 1.5 meg of stuff in 
a recoverable ram disk that I use regularly and I'm not about to reload that 
from floppy every day.  Maybe when I get a hard disk I might reconsider but
for the last year and a half I've had no problems even with bad local power.
I only wish our cluster were as reliable.

The only problem I have is a complete loss of power about once every couple of
months for < 1 minute.  On that subject, does anybody know of a good power 
conditioner/uninterruptable power supply on the market that can cover just the
1000 and a Scholar modem ( the monitor and printer can fend for themselves )?

Dick

    I generally keep my Amiga running all weekend (about 48 hrs), but
    I shut it off during the day.  Inbred fear of fire, I guess.
    
    For a while, I kept it running for a few weeks non-stop.  
    
    Ed.
    

Fine, so you all have been successful at keeping your computer on
all-the-time, but you have (almost) all failed at addressing the
original question of "WHAT ADVANTAGES THIS PRESENTS".  (One of you
mentioned that you keep it on because you have RAM-disk loaded with
goodies.)  Do you do this because you believe that there is less chance
of failure?  Do you do it to keep you thin-file heads from sticking to
the hard disk?  Do you do it because you have your own hydor-electric
power generator in the back yard so it doesn't matter?  Do you own
stock in the power company?  Does it take too long to reboot?

		< Note 1106.0 by CAMTWO::ARENDT >

    "I am curious as to how many of you out there keep your machines
    running constantly and what advantages this presents."

    I have had mine running for the past couple of months almost non-stop,
    powering down only for hardware changes, tests, whatever.  I have
    a heavy duty power supply which is also a power line filter that
    seems to be working fine.
    
    On UPS systems for Amy, they are out there and are a bit expensive,
    but could power your system from 5 min to 6 hours, depending on
    how much $ you are willing to spend and the criticality of your
    applications.  Only use I could see for one is if you were running
    a BBS or using it for business.  I'll post the details if anyone
    is interested in UPS systems.
    
    -john-
    

    answer: convenience.  
    
    	I strongly recommend the practice during the first 90 days of
    ownership, to elicit all infant mortality failures during the warranty
    coverage period.  After that, its just easier to leave it on, and
    have instant access.  For this practice, I also strongly recommend
    a screen blanker, such as PopCli, as continual cycling doesn't seem
    to be good for the monitor's various power supplies.  For winchesters,
    I suspect its a race between head crash (cycling power) and bearing
    failure (continual running).  Both result in trash unless your drive
    has automatic head retraction to a non-contact park (does this exist?
    ... not my field).  
    
    	The real answer will require more detail on the conditions;
    primarily, for the on/off crowd, what's the period and duty cycle?
    
    Just my opinions,
    John

    I guess an army of analysts could tell you whether the hardware
    wears out faster due to the surge of a power-on OR the continuous
    heat of power dissipation in the chips.  I've tried to cut it down
    the middle.  Naturally, you wouldn't power down the system to go
    to the bathroom.  
    
    The advantage of keeping it running is not having to wait to reboot.
    For A1000 owners, this involves a 17 second wait for the 256K writable
    control store to load (Kickstart), one disk swap, and however long
    it takes to configure the system via the startup batch file.  I
    can transfer to boot sequence to my hard drive, but on a floppy,
    it would take over a minute.  However, in that minute, you can launch
    4 or 5 background tasks, build a recoverable RAM disk, or whatever.
    
    So the answer is that the only advantage is in time saved.
    
    Ed.
    

Re: .6

This is hypothetical, but the reasons I would consider running all the time are:

- convenience.  the hassle factor and time required to boot up make it
  impractical to use a computer for certain things - like for a phone list - if
  it is not always on.

- preserving the longevity of the hardware - especially a HD.  I am still trying
  to find out the pro's and con's here.

I don't believe the convenience factor comes into play without a HD - the hassle
factor is still there to find the disk with what you need.

	Paul

You may want to read note 1062 on this, also. There are some 
advantages for the hard drive, it appears. 

I leave mine on, based on the replies I got on that note. Besides
the drive and power surge advantages, I leave my compiler, editor,
linker, librarian, etc. in ram:, and copying all that stuff takes
a minute or so, on top of the boot process.

The Amy 2000 seems very insensitive to short powerdrops, of which
there are a lot in my town. I have a surge suppressor on the line,
PopCLI to blank the screen, and I turn off the monitor if it won't
be used within two hours.

John O

    
    I'm surprised no one's really mentioned the heat that comes off of this
    baby.  We don't have AC in the room where we keep the computer and in
    the summer when the temp goes above 80 the room gets quite HOT.  The
    room does have a window and a fan goes a long way to bringing the temp
    down (especially when its drawing AC cooled air from the living room).
    If I ever get a hard disk I expect I will have more high temp problems
    with it in the summer than low-humidity problems in the winter.  (But
    thats just based on my situation.  I have never even noticed and
    electrical discharges near my A1000.)
    
    I don't really mind the long boot time.  That along with the fact
    that we probably only use the computer about 3 hours per day
    (on average) is why we turn it off. I've been turning it off and
    on for almost two years now and still have not had a problem...
    
    regards,
    
    steve mcafee

    I have a friend who has a pair of amiga 1000s.  One or both were 
    bought when they first came out, so they've been running for 
    about three years straight, with out problems.  He does put 
    diskettes in the drives to keep them quiet though.  
    
    I know for sure that monitors last longer when shut off (something
    I read).  My friend does turn his monitors off.
             
    Fredric   MONET::CERTO