Activating pmset-standby on MBP dangerous for HDD?

[McDV]

Hi!

Concerning the MacBook Pro (2012-model) and Standby-mode I have a question:

Is it dangerous for my HDD to activate standby in pmset? I've checked it out: With hibernationmode set to 3 and standby 1, the MacBook first simply goes into sleep-mode (without writing the RAM to the HDD) when the lid is closed. After the specified period of time (4200 seconds by default) it wakes up for a few seconds, writes it's RAM to the disk and finally hibernates.

I like this behavior, because this way it is immediately awake, when I just don't use it for a couple of minutes during work. On the other hand, if I don't use it for several days, I still got a full battery when I need it again.

My sorrows occur, because it could happen, that the RAM is just written to the disk, when I carry around my MacBook in a bag or s.th., where it could be exposed to shocks. Will the SMS protect the HDD or is the risk too high?

The other options are simply not optimal. Hibernationmode 3 will write the RAM to disk at once, but it will drain the battery during several days. And hibernationmode 25 won't drain the battery, but it's annoying when I just don't use it for a short period of time.

It would be much better, if Apple did integrate a mode, that (like hibernationmode 3) would write the RAM to the disk immediately after closing the lid and then, after 4200 seconds, just unpower the RAM without activating the HDD. Unfortunately, they didn't.

How do you handle this?

Regards
McDV

 

[McDV]

And some additional question: What is pmset autopoweroff good for? It's not documented within man pmset and on the internet I couldn't find that much, either.

 

[Orlandoech]

dangerous for the HDD as it will murder it? No...

Is it dangerous for its health and life span, not really but it may decrease life span.

I think you'll be ok setting it as you want.

 

[Quad5Ny]

McDV your asking is it bad for the HDD to power on while it's in your backpack and your moving around and stuff, right?

I think if your just walking normally with the laptop in your backpack it should be fine. Remember the hard drive will only spin up for a few seconds to copy the contents of RAM and will then power off.

But if it was my MacBook, no I wouldn't enable standby on a HDD, I don't like the idea of the HDD spinning up while I'm walking around and risking a head crash.

In fact I don't keep HDD's in any laptop I own (or will own), everything portable I currently have is flash based (SSD). It's just so freeing not to have to worry about a glass platters spinning at 5400RPM with small electromagnetic heads floating above them at a height smaller than a human hair.

 

[Orlandoech]

McDV your asking is it bad for the HDD to power on while it's in your backpack and your moving around and stuff, right?

I think if your just walking normally with the laptop in your backpack it should be fine. Remember the hard drive will only spin up for a few seconds to copy the contents of RAM and will then power off.

But if it was my MacBook, no I wouldn't enable standby on a HDD, I don't like the idea of the HDD spinning up while I'm walking around and risking a head crash.

In fact I don't keep HDD's in any laptop I own (or will own), everything portable I currently have is flash based (SSD). It's just so freeing not to have to worry about a glass platters spinning at 5400RPM with small electromagnetic heads floating above them at a height smaller than a human hair.

See, I was confused on what he was truly asking to, but you seem to have better reading skills than I do lol.

 

[McDV]

Thanks for that answers!

You are right, it will probably decrease the HDDs lifetime, but it is quite a small chance, that there is a heavy shock during the few seconds the HDD wakes up. Maybe using normal SafeSleep is more dangerous, because when I'm in a hurry, sometimes I tend to pick up the MBP immediately after closing the lid. With standby enabled, the HDD turns off at once, but without, it will write the RAM-data to the HDD.

Concerning SSDs: Yes, that would be better, but a huge SSD is quite expensive. As I'm doing TimeMachine-backups, I guess I will just use the original HDD until it maybe gets damaged. Then I can still switch over to an SSD.