I believe this is a slightly controversial topic, at least from what I have gathered so far. Some say its best to leave the server on to spare the life time of the spinning rust. Other seem to prefer to save power and boot the server off each night. So wanted to chip in and hear what folks here do and why do what you do.

Bonus question; Do you guys have a UPS? Is it a must have for a homelab, or does it just depend on the usecase?

  • Matthias Liffers@social.tthi.as
    1·
    6 months ago

    I don’t shut down my servers at night, because:

    1. My two servers were built to consume little power - no second-hand enterprise servers here.
    2. They’re always doing something. For example, off-site backups are scheduled for when I’m asleep

    I don’t have a UPS because:

    1. I am fortunate to live in a developed country with a very stable power grid
    2. My servers can recover gracefully on the very rare occasion there is a power loss