[ken in texas]

I used to do SETI, but was told I would wear down my hard drive, or in some way shorten the ultimate life time of my computer.

And did this person tell you what facts were used to develop that opinion??

I suppose we could take the extremist view and say that even checking email and surfing Free Republic shortens the life of your computer. :-) However, as long as your hardware is in good condition and has adequate cooling / ventilation, all should be fine. Folding uses the processor as much as it can, you can always throttle it back a bit if you want it to use less. Checkpoints are written to the hard drive every 20-30 minutes or so.

[fanfan]

you can always throttle it back a bit if you want it to use less.

I'm not all that good with computers. Would you mind explaining how I would do that? Just by not loading another WU, or some other way?

Checkpoints are written to the hard drive every 20-30 minutes or so.

Um, what?