I'm using XP SP3 on my home server which has been running 24/7 for quite some time now. I restart it once every 2 months although I've never had any problems with it becoming sluggish. Now I'm considering upgrading it to Windows 7. Is Windows 7 bug-free enough to be running 24/7 like XP over an extended period or time? Or will it require more frequent restarts? Not that it should matter (I believe) but the server has an Atom CPU @ 1.6Ghz and 1GB of memory. Any thoughts appreciated Thanks!
In my experience, as long as sleep, hibernate, and hard drive spin-down features are all disabled under "power settings," Windows 7 is equally stable.
Presumably to make it so that the hard drives keep spinning when the would normally slowdown and stop when the machine is turned off or hibernated... I would recommend against this because it could result in hardware damage or fatigue because of it running for too long... However there is another approach to this as each hard drive has a warranty even still I would not disable the spin-down option... It may increase the boot up time which I'm pretty sure it will but I would rather increase the time so as hardware damage does not occur...
See, that's the funny thing, because all the time I've been on the Internet I've heard conflicting things about this. Some people claim it's best to have the hard drive spinning constantly, others recommend the spin-down. I've always stuck with constant spinning, and I've been using the same hard drive for years now.
I don't have nearly the experience to say one way or another.... But I guess its your call and if it works on xp it will prob work on 7...
i had the harddrive spin set on my 1tb external i bought. it failed after 8months. seagate replaced but i lost 800gb of goodies. my 2 cents....
Why? Is XP doing what it needs to do? Why do you want to upgrade to Windows 7? Don't get me wrong, I think Windows 7 is superior, just curious. I'm not sure I would upgrade a server that was working the way I wanted it to without a reason.
That's probably a question I should be asking myself since there is no special reason for me to upgrade to Windows 7. I'm not missing out on anything at the moment and I'm not in need of any of the functions that were introduced in Windows 7. I was just hoping I would get better performance / efficiency compared to XP SP3. Not that I can think of anything that would be more efficient though..
I'm not sure how big your HDD is but I would suggest you create a partition for Windows 7 and simply try it out?
In terms of pure efficiency, XP SP3 is your best bet (aside from any Linux distribution with a lightweight GUI such as XFCE.) As much as I love Windows 7, it's still too bloated and "floaty" to be what I would consider "efficient." I do like it better than Vista though, and I require some of the capabilities it brings to the table (such as DirectX 10 support since XP is starting to be slowly phased out for gaming, see Just Cause 2 for an example of this.)
Where I work, there are several computers with windows 7 that are running 24/7 since mid april of this year. Only the monitors are configured to turn off after 15 mins of non-use - to prolong its service life. Since you are asking if windows 7 is stable enough, from what I have experienced, the answer would be yes. Is it more stable than xp? I am not sure yet, simply because we had xp machines that were running longer than that time frame. IF you limit the number of programs running and dedicate the machine to a primary task, the chances of a crash or a need for a reboot is even lower. Of course if a component or hardware fails, your system goes down. But with regards to the windows 7 operating system, we have several computers running 24/7 almost 3 months now and running. One had to be shut down because it had to be relocated. These are various brands, nothing special or high performance... just Dells and HPs- the usual models you can get with company discounts. Just as recommended above, you might consider dual booting win7 and give it a try. That way you preserve your current xp system config and settings and will be easy to revert back. There are things that can go wrong not because of windows 7's stability - there are instances where hardware and application compatibility may cause issues.
It depends on the use of the computer. On a true server spindown is bad because it creates a massive latency. On a home computer, thats less of a consideration. if your pattern of use is very specific, such that you are on the same machine but only use a particular drive for a certain amount of time, its probably better to have it spin down for the rest of the time (it could be 21 hours for example)! Thats about the same power as running a 100w light for 1 hour. I too believe constant spin-downs and ups aren't good for the drive.
Yea, same issue on a mates PC, HDD was 1 month old. Bad firmware they blame, I had a 500GB, updated firmware recently n its been ok but tbh... Western Digital all the way, 7 drives - no issues.
Thank you! This was just the kind of FACT that I was looking for. I'll just have to dual boot and try it out like many of you suggest.
You will not get better performance with Windows 7 with your current configuration. Only if you have a high end CPU like an i7 or a Centrino Core 2 Duo will you get higher performance as Windos will be able to utilize both cores efficiently. I personally thinkg you should not upgrade you will experience a slight slow down...like 5% maybe.. But if you have anything less than 2 GB of RAM with Windows 7 you are asking for a major slow down my friend