The U-Med Green District intends to urge employees to turn off their computers at the end of the work day. Conventional wisdom says that will harm the computer. Does anyone have research on this topic
Joette Storm, APR
Sustainability Coordinator
U-Med Green District
Turning off Computers: Energy Saved
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The Energy Star program also offers free WOL software: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=power_mgt.pr_power_mgt_wol
I hope this is helpful!
Lea Zeise
We Conserve - UW Madison
United States
I consulted with the Indianapolis Museum of Art on energy saving strategies, and the issue of full shut down vs. sleep mode of computers was initiated after research showed that computers are designed to boot up thousands of times, with no negative impact on hardware durability.
David Kadlec, LEED AP
Partner
CasaVerde LLC
United States
I've tried to get our employees to turn of their computers at night or have our IT department develop a policy or standardized settings for powering down, but IT says that they update software on evenings and weekends, so they want people to leave their desktop computers on so the system can remotely update everybody and have them ready in the morning when they come in. Anybody have a response to that type of issue?
Peter Schultze-Allen
Environmental Programs Analyst
City of Emeryville
Re turning off computers, see http://www.microsoft.com/windows/explore/turnoff-pc.aspx for some answers to your question.
Elsie Harvey
Stakeholder Relations Consultant
GLOBE (Green Light on a Better Environment )
Canada
Has anyone studied how much actual time computer updates and back-ups take? It seems more like a convenience and that some automated updates could be scheduled to occur in a more compressed time period? Is it something we're (non-techies) socialized and afraid to challenge for fear of invoking bad computer karma? Maybe the next generation of building wiring will allow wholescale shut-downs of computer systems (maybe some plug detection innovation) to allow ITs to power up whenever and only when needed.
Jean Eells
E Resources Group
United States
Peter,
The Wake-On-LAN feature should allow the network administrators to remotely wake all computers from sleep mode, install updates, and then reinstate sleep mode for the remainder of the night. There is a case study at the link I posted above that should be helpful.
Lea Zeise
Project Manager
We Conserve - UW Madison
United States
conserve.wisc.edu
Microsoft just completed a major study on this. They acknowledge that waking computers up for network updates is common, but that a study on 'large installations' has not been done. This comprehensive study gives lots of data, and is written so that a network administrator will appreciate the information.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/061010-microsoft-sleep-proxy.html
So I guess the conclusion is that computers should be turned off as much as possible, and doing so won't hurt the hard drives. And turning them off and then back on doesn't consume any more power. And that systems exist to wake networked computers up at night to install updates.
So it should be pretty easy then to effect change? Right? (NOT).
That's where social behaviour changes needs to come in to show that it's cool to be leading edge on I.T. energy consumption reduction.
Norm Ruttan
President
iWasteNot Systems
Canada
www.iwastenotsystems.com
...
From the University of Alberta: http://www.vpit.ualberta.ca/green/?ref=things#4
Turn off your computer when you will not be using it for several hours
Leaving your computer turned on overnight for a year generates about 920 lbs. of CO2 . Yet, research indicates that as many of 60% of workers using computers do not always shut them down at the end of the day. (Wasting Energy While We Sleep)
New technologies make this easier!
But my computer will be damaged by frequent shut-downs! Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has found that even older hard drives will not be damaged, and on the contrary, computers may actually last longer if shut off regularly (also see a newer guide by Cornell).
Enabling users to turn off their computers at the end of the day is a viable way to decrease related energy costs by 60%. Network administrators can now purchase cost-effective hardware and software (W0L) that enables them to perform software and security updates, as necessary. The payback period for network software to enable updates to turned-off computers can be less than one year.
Cornell's Guide is here: http://computing.fs.cornell.edu/fsit/Sustainable/FSSustainableComputingGuide.pdf
Norm Ruttan
President
iWasteNot Systems
Canada
www.iwastenotsystems.com