When do i turn off and when do i sleep?

Y

yettimillan

macrumors regular
Hi i have read some apple documentation but i can't remember if it was on their site or a booklet.

It said something about sleeping my mac more than shutting it down. It said to sleep my mac all the time and only shut it down when not using it for a while up to 2 days.

At the moment i sleep my mac during the day when i'm not using it and I shut it down at night and when i am transporting my mac.

Shall i sleep it at night instead instead of shutting it down each night. And also when in sleep is the hard drive properly docked so i can transport my mac without damaging the hard drive without having to turn it off.

Can sleeping it all the time damage it or shutting down?

Thanks.
 
yettimillan said:
Hi i have read some apple documentation but i can't remember if it was on their site or a booklet.

It said something about sleeping my mac more than shutting it down. It said to sleep my mac all the time and only shut it down when not using it for a while up to 2 days.
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Thats what i do i suppose, I never shut down my mac except when I need to use Windows on the other partition.

yettimillan said:
At the moment i sleep my mac during the day when i'm not using it and I shut it down at night and when i am transporting my mac.

Shall i sleep it at night instead instead of shutting it down each night. And also when in sleep is the hard drive properly docked so i can transport my mac without damaging the hard drive without having to turn it off.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that the hard drive is completely safe for transport when the Mac is asleep, It shuts down and docks completely. I sleep mine all night.

yettimillan said:
Can sleeping it all the time damage it or shutting down?

Thanks.
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Not totally sure about this, I'm gonna say that no damage will come to it, just remember to cycle your battery.
 
Sleep turns off everything except your RAM memory. Your harddrive will be safe.

When using sleep mode, you simply save the current session and go further with it when you wake the computer up. Turn the computer off and you will start with a clean slate the next time you turn it on.

There isn't really a rule that you should follow. But know that in sleep mode, the RAM memory still consumes some power. That's why you could prefer to turn the computer off when not using it for a relatively long period (days).

Personally, I never turn off my mac (only restart for updates). For longer periods (which happens rarely), I put it in hibernation (also called deep sleep, I use the Deep Sleep widget) which writes the RAM content to the harddrive so that the RAM too can be turned off. So essentially it's sleep without using power.
 
yettimillan said:
It said to sleep my mac all the time and only shut it down when not using it for a while up to 2 days.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Thats what I do, so that pretty much = Never shut down!
Im always using my Mac! :D
Only shut her down once and that was to drive from Arizona to Chicago...
 
I let mine sleep, plugged into the mains over night or if I'm watching TV away from its charger.
I only shut down when I travel with it, which isn't often so my mac is more or less always on.
 
One reason to shut down your computer is to safe guard against it turning itself on in your bag and become very very hot due to this. Thought to be caused by a software bug and external devices waking up the computer.
 
JoeDRC said:
Correct!
I've been working all day, thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it :p
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Haha, no worries man ;D

Frosties said:
One reason to shut down your computer is to safe guard against it turning itself on in your bag and become very very hot due to this. Thought to be caused by a software bug and external devices waking up the computer.
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I would expect that to be a rare issue. Mine doesn't even wake up when I unplug the external mouse (which is odd, it used to). I generally shut it down to reset RAM anyway. There's probably no need, I'm probably wrong ;D
 
Frosties said:
One reason to shut down your computer is to safe guard against it turning itself on in your bag and become very very hot due to this. Thought to be caused by a software bug and external devices waking up the computer.
Click to expand...

This is a good point. I put mine to sleep most nights, but about once every week or so it apparently wakes up during the night and runs the battery all the way down until it shuts down. This is very irritating-must be my bluetooth mouse or something.
 
I don't think any of my Macs have been 'off' for more than a few hours at any point in years now; one advantage of Apple doing their entire system is that they have an extremely dependable sleep mode, which I use all the time. Personally, I never shut the buggers down unless I'm going on vacation or something :)
 
Sometimes I'll sleep mine, but most of the time I turn it off to save power (especially when I'm out and about).. I guess I'll start sleeping it more then
 
skye12 said:
This is a good point. I put mine to sleep most nights, but about once every week or so it apparently wakes up during the night and runs the battery all the way down until it shuts down. This is very irritating-must be my bluetooth mouse or something.
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You should leave a MacBook plugged into the power supply while at sleep, otherwise some of the battery charge will be used. Not only is your Mac not on a full charge in the morning when you might need it, your battery life will be shortened as well.
 
This is a good point. I put mine to sleep most nights, but about once every week or so it apparently wakes up during the night and runs the battery all the way down until it shuts down. This is very irritating-must be my bluetooth mouse or something.
Click to expand...

My macbook woke up one night at about 4am and it freaked me out because I heard the CD/DVD drive make that spinning noise then the fans kick in (even though the lid was down)

That's why I like turning it off at night now, seriously, I almost had a heart attack when it turned on. I thought there was someone in the room! I think it had something to do with it finishing it's charge though.
 
I shut it down at night, during the day its sleeping when not in use.

Also, am I the only one who has an OCD issue about people leaving computers on (not in sleep) at night? I drives me crazy, especially in offices.
 
spillproof said:
Also, am I the only one who has an OCD issue about people leaving computers on (not in sleep) at night? I drives me crazy, especially in offices.
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Well it's most useful when downloading, as a lot of the time, the evening hosts the most traffic of people connecting to the internet, and so internet speeds can be slower than when less people are using it. Since less people use it during the night, speeds can increase, therefore faster downloads, therefore earlier ETA. :)
 
As the sleep function on the MacBook works so beautifully (compared to the awful sleep modes of PC notebooks) I am inclined to leave mine sleeping pretty much all the time as it is just so convenient to just open the lid, wait a few seconds for the thing to wake up (reconnect to wifi etc) and then carry on working/playing.

I suspect in the 15 months I have had my MacBook I have probably pressed the On/Off button about a dozen times (if that). It only tends to get restarted after software updates.
 
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