As there have been numerous thunderstorms in the last few days, here in South Florida, the question has again been posed:

Should I leave my computer on and hooked up all the time or turn it off and unplug everything?

This is really a matter of personal preference and ability to accept the risk of frying your system.

Personally, when I am not actually using my PC for any length of time, regardless of the presence of thunderstorms, everything is turned off and unplugged, including any network cables and phone lines. I can not accept the risk of losing my equipment and my data.

Furthermore, if there are thunderstorms in the area after I start using my PC, I promptly shut everything down and unplug everything also.

I back up my data quite frequently but, even so I don’t want to take a chance and have to rebuild everything with a new set up. It is a lot of work to get things working the way I like them to and I am not willing to risk the lost time.