Does Running a Minecraft (FTB) Server Wear Out Components (Faster)?

[daviden]

Obviously, running the system continuously rather than shutting down will increase wear, but will running my small server accelerate wear on my components? It looks to me like all the "strain" - which isn't much at all - is on my memory and a bit on my CPU. I'm not knowledgeable about servers so to me that means that I shouldn't really be wearing anything out at least physically except my fans. This is just my main gaming rig so I just want to be sure I'm not doing any long term damage, although I doubt I should really worry.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Using cpu or memory doesn't really affect lifespan in a noticeable way, I wouldn't worry about it, your system is probably going to be too slow to be usable before it dies of hardware failure.

[BritScout]

RAM is indestructible. You have nothing to worry about in that regard. The chip is less indestructible, but again the chances are if you're running a small minecraft server you won't have any issues.

[Xaring]

Not in any way that should worry you. The thing that would suffer the most would be your PSU, as it would be working 24/7, but those are already made to last for hundreds of thousands of hours, so if your PSU is decent it should be OK. 
Your drives could also see higher use if it's saving the gamestate every 5-10 minutes and while loading some background shit, but the amount of data read/written shouldn't be absurd.

[jaslion]

Don't worry about it. The whole point of a pc is to be used. Hell it's even better to leave a pc on forever than constantly shutting it down and turning it back on again. It doesn't matter if it would be running at near 100% for years 24/7 it would still be better than shutting it down and starting it up every day.

 

But I digress. Don't worry nothing will go wrong. Take my old hp z620 I had that thing on basically 24/7 for 4.5 years rendering nonstop and it was in as good a shape as any compared to when I got it when I sold it again. A simple mc server won't hurt your pc at all.

[daviden]

Thanks all, it's good to hear that the consensus is pretty much "don't worry about it". 

 

[steelo]

Wear generally comes from extended periods of leaving your system on (as well as heat)

 

If it's going to be running 24/7, I'd ensure that you have proper cooling and the components are remaining relatively cool.

[jaslion]

5 hours ago, steelo said:

Wear generally comes from extended periods of leaving your system on (as well as heat)

 

If it's going to be running 24/7, I'd ensure that you have proper cooling and the components are remaining relatively cool.

The leaving it on part isn't the issue really. It's mainly just heat. The only parts that feel an impact of being constantly on are the ones with moving parts. That and the psu will degrade faster but by the time it will cause issues most people have a new pc already (if you got a quality psu that isn't already near 100% capacity)

[steelo]

20 hours ago, jaslion said:

The leaving it on part isn't the issue really. It's mainly just heat. The only parts that feel an impact of being constantly on are the ones with moving parts. That and the psu will degrade faster but by the time it will cause issues most people have a new pc already (if you got a quality psu that isn't already near 100% capacity)

True, he didn't state whether he's using a HDD or SSD. Heat is the main culprit for any electrical components wearing. I'd be more worried about the PSU failing and causing voltage spikes or a fan failing. Even so, the chances that your system will just 'fry' are pretty minimal. If for instance, a fan fails and the system overheats, most motherboards have a failsafe where they simply shut off.