I have my cable modem, DVR, and TV/Audio on UPS also. Even a short power drop will kick off the modem and it takes like 5 minutes to reestablish service. The UPS has saved many a movie night or recording.
As to powering off when not in use. I’m actually in favor of it. I mean leave it on if you are going to lunch, but power it down for the night.
Corruption of storage is more likely if the PC shuts down in an inelegant fashion.
Most modern PC sleep or hibernate after a given time. So the components are getting “powered down” and I haven’t seen enough examples of PC components that have failed due to power cycling.
A fan quitting is often the cause for heat/death. It’s amazing how crappy fans are in some components.
Cheaper video cards and low dollar power supplies come to mind here.
In the days of DOS, not much was going on when the system is idle. So a power outage would not interrupt disk operations.
Win 10 is hitting the hard drive so often, a power outage is more likely to cause a file corruption.
So, I tell my clients to shut down each night unless there is a compelling reason not to.
The only problem is that Win10 hits the drive so hard on startup, that a spinning drive is maxed out for minutes sometimes and the thing is just sluggish until the OS decides to quite messing with the rust drive.
Systems with low memory really suffer from this.
With an SSD this is not an issue.
Back in the days of DOS there was a model of Seagate drives that had the Seagate Stick. Run one for a good long time and get it warm. Then shut the system down and let it sit over the weekend.
Come Monday, the hard drive would not spin. The head would stick to the platters in the parking position.
The trick was to get the drive loose, but still connected. Then flip the power switch and at the same time give the drive a quick shake to free the heads.
If that didn’t work, then a sharp smack with a plastic screwdriver handle would usually do the job.
This could be done quite a few times before something broke. Usually the head coming off the arm.
I’d tell them, It’s time for a new drive. And if you want to keep using the PC, don’t turn it off.
These drives were flawed, but keeping the system on 24/7 would keep the drive from sticking.
Back when there were only a few drives in the market, you could tell what was inside a PC by the sound the drives made when powering up or parking. (usually). I used to play that game at clients offices. Listen for the tale tell Seagate Brrruup I’d lay a hand on the case and say, we better check your Seagate. I always like to put forward the idea that PC repair involved the dark arts.
I used to leave my fancy monoblock audio power amps on all the time thinking this was prolonging their life etc.
In the middle of the night one of the big electrolytic caps (about the size of a small soup can) decided to crap the bed. Dumped God know how many watts into my LF towers. Thought the house was being nuked. Killed the amp (naturally) but bottomed the voice coils in the 6 woofers. Killing yhe speakers too.
A dark day in my audio past.
All the Best,
Jeff
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