Is it a bad idea to do distributed computing?

Question

Like many users, my RPi will be used as a low-consumption micro server and will be powered continuously. All the computing time is not used and could help distributed computing projects like Folding@home or SETI@home, even if the CPU is not designed to do heavy computing.

Is it a bad idea to run a distributed program on the RPi continuously? Even if it cannot shut down like a common computer, will the RPi "shut down" when its CPU reaches its max temperature to prevent overheating? Will it shorten the lifespan of the device?

Answer 1

There are no cooling requirements. I think one issue that comes to mind is the SD card, you would have to make sure that you are following steps to reduce the number of writes to extend it's lifespan.

The only other thing I would add is that the Pi is slow. It will offer very little benefit to those organisations alone. Although it could be argued that if everyone took that stance then there would be no machines connected at all.