When To Shutdown Or Reboot

I have been asked many times when is it best to shut down my computer. In all honesty this really depends on the type of system you have be it a desktop, server, or laptop and the Operating System you have on your computer.

Laptops - It is best to shut down a laptop any time it is not going to be used. Laptops are designed to be mobile and to be used as needed when needed and do not like running long periods of time however heed this warning. The Microsoft Windows operating system does not like being shut down and started up all the time and make sure you use windows to shut down your system properly or you will corrupt the operating system. You can reboot the system any time you need to and if it has been running for a while and is getting slow a reboot will usually help this issue.

Desktops - Most desktop system do not like being turned on and off all the time and are designed to set and run. When you shut down the system and start it back up it actually sends a surge through the components to fire up all the hardware and the system does not like doing this all the time. It is best to leave your system on all day and only shut it completely down when you are going to bed and the system will not be used again for many hours. If you can leave it running I would recommend leaving it on and running as long as possible rather then shutting it down. I turn my system off 1 day every month just to give it a bit of a rest but not surge it all the time starting it up. That one day is also when I break it down the clean out the dust. As for reboots, if the system is lagging or running slow it is fine to reboot the system any time needed as it does not power down. Heed this warning the Microsoft Windows operating system does not like running for extremely long time spans so a reboot when needed or a couple of times a week will not hurt a thing.

Servers - Servers are designed to run continuous and should unless maintenance is being performed. Again even the Microsoft Server Operating System does not like running super long periods of time and will cause services or socket errors on the server. You will have to reboot it from time to time to get all the services back up and keep the system running optimal.