It’s always been a toss up for me if I should leave my PC on all the time or shut it off every night. I’ve gone through phases where I’ve left it on constantly, but then I convinced myself that it was too expensive. However, during my phases when I would shut it off at night, I figured it was bad on my hard drive and other components to frequently have to power on.
At Coding Horror, they have come up with instructions about how to measure the exact amount of money you spend each year to keep that PC chugging away. For example, their server PC being left on in California eats up over 1400 kilowatt-hours per year, which equates to about $200.
This is definitely something to consider when deciding whether or not to leave your PC on. It may also be an important factor in deciding to pay for web hosting services or just do it yourself. It would appear that hosting your own web site does not necessarily save you as much money as you may have thought(depending, of course, on your web site’s demands and how much you would normally pay for hosting).
