Poll: Who puts their iMac to sleep or shuts it down?

Although i'm a MBP owner now i've owned iMacs. I've always slept my computers. Computers are designed to be on 24/7 anyway so you're not really wearing anything down long term except maybe fans and the HDD which spin up and down frequently. But even then it'll take a long time to wear them down.

Computers are also much more power efficient nowadays that leaving them on/to sleep has little detrimental effect.

Sleep, because it's nearly instant on. However, I would shut it down if I didn't have a UPS.

Always sleep. Only reboot when I have to (usually part of a software update).

There are lots of threads on this topic already. Do a search.

There are dozens of "sleep or shutdown" threads where you'll find many Mac users run months at a time without shutting down. Either is perfectly fine. One thing to consider is that there are maintenance scripts that run on a daily, weekly and monthly schedule. If your Mac is in sleep mode at the scheduled time, the scripts will run when your Mac is awake. If your Mac is shut down, the scripts won't run until the next scheduled time. If your Mac is always shut down at those times, the scripts will never run.

Poll: Do you turn you MBP off?
Should I sleep or shut down when I'm away?
If you guys always sleep and never shut down...
MacBook Pro: Sleep or Shut Down?
Is it 'bad' to never shut an iMac down, but instead sleep it?
Do you shut down or sleep your MBA?

Shut down.

I don't want things to build up in the RAM, and it'll save more electricity than putting it to sleep.

Also, while sleeping probably doesn't cause much heat, I like to give it a better chance at cooling down more.

I don't often shut it down when leaving the house for things. I turn it on in the morning, put it to sleep when going out for the day, come back and turn it off when I go to bed.

I shutdown my 2006 iMac every day, and booted it up every morning, pretty much, for six years. Never had any issues with it.

Why? I pay the bills. iMac plus second monitor, plus peripherals, even on sleep/standby: it adds up. I reset the schedule of the periodic tasks so that they would be performed when the machine was on.

I used to shut it down every night when I had my old iMac but now that I have a new 2012 27" inch I find myself just putting it to sleep every night. It's so awesome to turn it on in the morning and have it back up and running in less than a few seconds, its awesome

It only takes 12 seconds to boot up but I still put her to sleep.

Why? Seriously, I don't know. I remember reading it here years ago, something about less stress on the components?

The only time I shut it down is when I know I'm leaving for a few days.

Although Apple's environmental status report on the 2012 21.5-inch iMac says it uses about 1.25W when in sleep mode (vs. 0.22W when Off) I put a Kill-A-Watt meter on it and it registers 0 while sleeping. Not worth the extra time starting up to save 1W at most.

Here is the link to the environmental status report on the 2012 27-inch iMac

Never have put any of my machines to sleep or off overnight since OS X 10.2. Even my MacBooks stay on all night. I do have the displays sleep after several minutes and I have a hot corner to sleep the display on demand. The small amount of power they use doesn't affect my electric bill at all compared to the hot tub and pool, especially since I changed my outdoor lighting (on all night) to LED.

I should say that given only the two choices I would choose sleep, unless we are planning on running the generator due to a power outage.

I guess it depends. Me who has fusion drive on iMac and ssd on macbook air i always turn them off if i don't use them for at least 8 hours. If i was having a 5400HDD or 7200 i guess i put them to sleep

I shut down because I'm in a highly networked environment and sleeping tends to disconnect drives and sometimes messes up USB connected drives

Neither. But in the past, I used to put my iMac to sleep. The reason I don't is because when I'm in other rooms in the house using my MBP, my iMac acts as a server and I found that waking it from sleep remotely is not something that works reliably. I do have the screen turn off and the HD spin down though.

Neither. I sleep the display.

alphaod said:

Neither. I sleep the display.

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Me too. Going on 7 years no problem.

I always put mine to sleep. Only time I turn it off is when an update requires a re-boot or if I am away for the weekend or on holiday.

I sleep mine but thanks to power outs my uptime sucks. There's like one at least twice a month.

I also have display sleep on like 10 mins but most of the time i use computer sleep just to give the fans a rest. I set my computer sleep to never because i like to control that manually as it can screw up if your exporting or uploading to YouTube.

I shut down and unplug when I'm working from my office in town, because my home office is on a farm that has a lot of granite and attracts lightning. The sort of lightning strikes that split enormous trees down the middle. a feeble little surge protector can't stop that. Once I left my fax machine plugged in (to a very expensive surge protector) during one of these ferocious storms as I was waiting for an important fax ... Direct hit, this blue flame from the plugboard on the floor reached the ceiling, totally killed the board and the machine.

My oldest machines in sig have been turned on and off daily, both still work perfectly, have never been repaired.

boy-better-know said:

I always put mine to sleep. Only time I turn it off is when an update requires a re-boot or if I am away for the weekend or on holiday.

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Same here.

benwiggy said:

I shutdown my 2006 iMac every day, and booted it up every morning, pretty much, for six years. Never had any issues with it.

Why? I pay the bills. iMac plus second monitor, plus peripherals, even on sleep/standby: it adds up. I reset the schedule of the periodic tasks so that they would be performed when the machine was on.

Click to expand...

Late 2012 iMac, using Kill A Watt:

Normal idle with no open applications: 85 watts
Heaven app. at Ultra performance settings: 170 watts
iMac with display off: 40 watts
iMac in sleep mode: 2 watts

When booting the iMac from off, the wattage zooms to ~120-130 watts. It takes a few minutes for it to settle down to the 85 watt range.

Two watts is about the same as a tiny nightlight. YMMV depending on your machine and startup applications, etc. But I suspect it is cheaper to put the iMac to sleep rather than turning it off, unless you plan on not rebooting for a few days.

Sleep. Restart once every two weeks or so.

We don't turn off clocks.
No need to turn off computers.

(Sleep)

Sleep.

Once a month I do a very brief shut down and do an SMC and PRAM re-set...just for the sake of doing them!

I've been leaving mine on all the time recently.

I use Hot Corners to sleep the display, otherwise it is set to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity. The hard disks are set to never spin down (a good way to avoid unnecessary spin ups and spin downs).

According to my UPS, the iMac consumes 5 to 7 watts when the display is off and it is idle. Less than most light bulbs.