patgolfneb wrote:
This is an ongoing debate among tech people I know. Some believe that shutting them down clears out caches and closes rarely used functions, good for performance. Others feel leaving them on reduces shock to the system and since devices are almost completely solid state and most don't even have fans shutting them off is unecessary. The one thing they agree on is leaving battery powered devices plugged in all the time is really bad for the batteries. I compromise and shut mine down about once a week.
As a general rule, many electronics engineers believe that both electrical shock and thermal shock will shorten the life of solid state devices. Every time a solid state device is powered down, allowed to cool, then is turned on again, both types of shock will result. We used to "burn in" our manufactured electronic products for a week, cycling the power off, then back on again, every hour, and cycling the temperature from 50 degrees C to room temperature for one hour every 24 hours. We caught about 99+% of the "infant mortality" failures, and we never had a device fail in the field.
At a couple of the places where I worked, the policy was to leave all desktop computers running 24/7, just to prevent premature failures. We rotated these machines out after five years of use, with only occasional failures in less than that time.
Server computers, which must provide High Availability (HA) performance, are normally never powered down. They typically run 24/7. These would include Web servers, database servers, file and print servers, and applications servers.
Ideally, it would be great if a NOOK could be "rebooted" without powering down. Can't that be accomplished by holding the power and "N" buttons down simultaneously? Are there ill effects from that process? I have done this when my NOOK Tablet froze on two different occasions, but I don't remember if there were adverse consequences.
I cycle my Nook once ever week or two.
