How to convince a family member to be energy conscious

Astria

Spies said:

See I've always considered a tumble dryer to be a waste for just the two of us, but it has been a hassle drying outside, we don't have a garden so have to use a clothes airer, then the wind blows it over and it just gets annoying.

Maybe I'll look into a dryer 

We use a dryer, but not for drying clothes, well maybe a little as the water container does need emptying from time to time, but it's typically on for at most 20 minutes and the clothes still come out damp, but it does a good job of de-fuzzing the clothes, then they get put on a clothes airer inside so they don't get blown over or rained on (as this is the UK after all...). Leave them 12  hours (maybe 24 for jeans) and they are both dry and don't need ironing.

poppellerant

wittynamegoeshere said:

poppellerant said:

I used to turn my systems on an off a very long time ago.  But I won't forget the feeling of losing my data drive one morning, when it didn't spin up.  So as tiny as the risk might be, it's not a risk I am willing to take again.  This includes stopping the drives spinning down, to save a couple of watts.  It simply is not worth the risk.

I used to have two hard drives in my computer, so having a drive for the system and programs and another drive for my storage isn't unfamiliar to me.  In fact I still have two separate drives now - one is an SSD for Windows and programs, the other is a hard drive for my files.

I appreciate that you had good intentions when posting.  But believe me, experience has taught me the best way of doing things.

Hard disks fail regularly, whether power-cycled or not.  Yours failed on power-up, but it probably would have failed later on if it had never been off.

By your logic, no hard disk in any data centre would ever fail, they are never shut down so should last for ever.  In reality, they regularly fail.

You should just accept that anything on any storage device could be wiped out at any point.  If you think your sole copy of your data is safe as a result of leaving it on all the time then you just have fooled yourself into a false sense of security, and are wasting a load of power keeping a disk spinning for ever at a few thousand rpm for no actual additional safety.

How healthy do you think those bearings are after however many billion revs it has done?  There are risks to power-cycling, but there are also big risks in using something until it wears out.

I've had hard drives spinning for over 8 years, with only the occasional power down when performing PC maintenance - this is worked out using the power on hours, not invoice or purchase dates.  Also my drives use fluid bearings, which have a longer life than average bearings.  As well as helping to reduce noise, they also ensure longevity - albeit, not forever.

I do accept that my data is always at risk and this is why I keep regular backups, more-so after my little scare.  So I am not fooling anybody, including myself, by putting all my eggs into one basket.  Nor am I fooling myself in thinking that power cycling a hard drive is good for it, either - hence why it spins 24/7.

A hard drive which isn't constantly power cycled is less likely to fail than a hard drive which is constantly power cycled.  Do your own research on the matter.

peter3hg

poppellerant said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

I'm pretty sure the power cycle theory is an insignificantly tiny risk.  My PCs have all been switched on and off at the wall for years, they've never gone bang.

I can't speak for everyone, but my other half and I don't have our own money, it's all ours.  So if I was spending money on something I'd expect to justify it and would understand if she wanted to know more about it or had other ideas.

If you need massive amounts of data then an SSD for the system and a HD for storage is the normal method.  You can then also enable power saving on the HD, so it will stop spinning unless you're actually accessing it.

I used to turn my systems on an off a very long time ago.  But I won't forget the feeling of losing my data drive one morning, when it didn't spin up.  So as tiny as the risk might be, it's not a risk I am willing to take again.  This includes stopping the drives spinning down, to save a couple of watts.  It simply is not worth the risk.

I used to have two hard drives in my computer, so having a drive for the system and programs and another drive for my storage isn't unfamiliar to me.  In fact I still have two separate drives now - one is an SSD for Windows and programs, the other is a hard drive for my files.

I appreciate that you had good intentions when posting.  But believe me, experience has taught me the best way of doing things.

If your data is so important to you then why don't you have a backup or at least redundancy?
Relying on a single hard drive for anything of importance to you is madness and is miles from the "best way" no matter what misinformed mitigations you have in place.

Mstty

@GasPants

I don't think you answered one of the very first replies

"Who pays the bills"

This is relevent as if the person using the most energy and resistant to saving energy pays the bills and they are happy with the cost then you may be banging your head against a brick wall

Alnat1

I'm still a little bit in love with my dryer, a Bosch series 8, which was bought in the winter of 2014-15 and I think cost around £600. At the time it was quite expensive but I fell for all the new tech and energy saving they were promising and I haven't regretted it. Many of the features are now standard but this is what I like about it -

Heat pump type, so really efficient and dries faster than I first expected
Senses when clothes are dry and stops (various dryness settings) so clothes never get "cooked"
9kg drum, I can do light and dark quick washes then dry both at same time, even KS duvet fits in
Double fluff filter (brilliant for catching dog hair) and self cleaning condenser
Water can be piped away (shares the tube with the washer outlet pipe) so no emptying the tank 
Interior light when door opens, you can see that last sock
Can set anti-crease if you're not going to be around when it's finished, no ironing!

I know it's not energy saving compared to hanging out but.......I just can't give it up.

Mstty

wittynamegoeshere said:

Mstty said:

@GasPants

I don't think you answered one of the very first replies

"Who pays the bills"

This is relevent as if the person using the most energy and resistant to saving energy pays the bills and they are happy with the cost then you may be banging your head against a brick wall

I'd translate your response as "The man of the house has spoken, don't answer back".

Not a healthy approach.

Well then you would be translating wrongly.

It could well be the lady or both in control of finances I was just trying to get all the facts before wading in with energy advice and approach to a resistant energy user.

poppellerant

peter3hg said:

poppellerant said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

I'm pretty sure the power cycle theory is an insignificantly tiny risk.  My PCs have all been switched on and off at the wall for years, they've never gone bang.

I can't speak for everyone, but my other half and I don't have our own money, it's all ours.  So if I was spending money on something I'd expect to justify it and would understand if she wanted to know more about it or had other ideas.

If you need massive amounts of data then an SSD for the system and a HD for storage is the normal method.  You can then also enable power saving on the HD, so it will stop spinning unless you're actually accessing it.

I used to turn my systems on an off a very long time ago.  But I won't forget the feeling of losing my data drive one morning, when it didn't spin up.  So as tiny as the risk might be, it's not a risk I am willing to take again.  This includes stopping the drives spinning down, to save a couple of watts.  It simply is not worth the risk.

I used to have two hard drives in my computer, so having a drive for the system and programs and another drive for my storage isn't unfamiliar to me.  In fact I still have two separate drives now - one is an SSD for Windows and programs, the other is a hard drive for my files.

I appreciate that you had good intentions when posting.  But believe me, experience has taught me the best way of doing things.

If your data is so important to you then why don't you have a backup or at least redundancy?
Relying on a single hard drive for anything of importance to you is madness and is miles from the "best way" no matter what misinformed mitigations you have in place.

I do keep backups, as mentioned in my post immediately above yours.

MWT

wittynamegoeshere said:

Hard disks fail regularly, whether power-cycled or not.  Yours failed on power-up, but it probably would have failed later on if it had never been off.

By your logic, no hard disk in any data centre would ever fail, they are never shut down so should last for ever.  In reality, they regularly fail.

To be fair to both sides, having managed many data centres, yes drives can fail while in use and yes you protect against those failures with RAID and other solutions, but by far the most common time for there to be a hardware failure is when you need to power cycle the hardware.

So there are valid concerns on both sides.

k_man

MWT said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

Hard disks fail regularly, whether power-cycled or not.  Yours failed on power-up, but it probably would have failed later on if it had never been off.

By your logic, no hard disk in any data centre would ever fail, they are never shut down so should last for ever.  In reality, they regularly fail.

To be fair to both sides, having managed many data centres, yes drives can fail while in use and yes you protect against those failures with RAID and other solutions, but by far the most common time for there to be a hardware failure is when you need to power cycle the hardware.

So there are valid concerns on both sides.

I view this slightly differently, and suspect many of the failure at power cycle weren't caused by the power cycle as such, but the system is in pre-fail state until the power cycle.

This is similar to how computers seem to 'fail' or error most frequently at startup. This is not usually caused by startup, but is identified during startup (something was already wrong, but the system was still working until the restart).

It is a bit of tree falls in the woods argument though...

GasPants

Mstty said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

Mstty said:

@GasPants

I don't think you answered one of the very first replies

"Who pays the bills"

This is relevent as if the person using the most energy and resistant to saving energy pays the bills and they are happy with the cost then you may be banging your head against a brick wall

I'd translate your response as "The man of the house has spoken, don't answer back".

Not a healthy approach.

Well then you would be translating wrongly.

It could well be the lady or both in control of finances I was just trying to get all the facts before wading in with energy advice and approach to a resistant energy user.

Who said I was a lady? You have overlooked the possibility that I am male also. Anyway, we jointly contribute but I tend to deal with the finances.