Is it recommended to log off from Windows when finished working on a server with RDP?
Is there any impact on the server performance in case I don't log off after having used Remote Desktop Connection?
Yes there is an impact. Yes it is recommended that you log off. If you don't log off, all of the resources (such as RAM) that it took to sustain your interactive user session stay in use. You keep one of two administrative connections in use so that others can't connect.
What's actually recommended is to not RDP to your servers at all. This is what the Remote Server Administration Tools and Powershell Remoting are for.
I also wish to say that there is a much larger security risk involved when you log in via RDP versus a network logon, e.g. through RSAT/MMC.
This might be slightly off-topic, but anyway:
It's considered a good practice by all the administrators I know to logoff when your done. Although the performance gain probably is neglible, there are other things to consider:
- A logged-on session tells other administrators that you're working on that server.
- By logging off when done, you work in a structured way (disregarding any "administration servers" from this rule, of course).
- The more processes running on a server, the larger the chance of memory leaks.
- Especially for virtual servers and graphic-intensive consoles, there is actually a measurable RAM penalty in large environments with a lot of lingering RDP sessions.
In short, do your fellow administrators a favor and log off. Everybody wins.
Besides the resource impact that Ryan Ries described, the other problem with long-running RDP sessions is if your password changes then any sessions currently open on a server will cause a huge number of authentication errors on your Domain Controllers.