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Any harm in keeping Studio powered on 24/7?

N

NJRonbo

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jan 10, 2007
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This is the first desktop computer that I would question whether I should keep powered on consistently.

I am running Homebridge software that connects incompatible devices to Apple HomeKit. It needs to constantly run.

Any harm in turning off my external monitor and just keeping the studio running constantly? Does it do any wear and tear to the hard drive? I would imagine not as nothing is written to it, but that's just an assumption.

If I decide to put my Studio to sleep instead, will the Homebridge software still run under that condition?


Thank You
 
I leave mine on for days at a time and just let the display (Samsung M8) shut off due to lack of signal. When it's sleeping, it's dead silent and ice cold, so I don't think anything is running.
 
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No problems here, I don't shut mine down at all either as it also runs software I need running all the time.
 
My last desktop computer was an iMac that I had for 5+ years. I never shut it off. Ever. I've had the Mac Studio since its release and have only shut it off once during a really bad lightning storm that lasted overnight (glad I did, because the power ended up going out).

My MacBook Pro only gets shut off when I know I won't be using it for a few days.
 
I never turn mine off. I have a 2012 iMac that has only been powered off probably less than 24 hours since 2012. No problems at all.
 
If every person who owned a Mac, never shut it off at the end of the day, the cumulative amount of wasted electricity and money is mind bogglingly huge.

Example:
Let’s say it draws 5 watts sleeping X 8 hours = 40 watts wasted every day X 365 = 14.6 kWh wasted every year.

Multiply 14.6 kWh/year X 50,000,000 users = 730,000,000 kWh wasted every year- doing absolutely nothing.

How much CO2 gets spewed into the air to generate 730 million kWh? — just because people are too lazy to press the Off button.
It’s criminal.
 
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I never turn my Macs off. There has been some research indicating power cycling is the worst aging mechanism on electronics.
The Studio is so low-power it does not impact your bill much. My old Classic Mac pro is another story. But I also tend to leave it running.
 
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NJRonbo said:
This is the first desktop computer that I would question whether I should keep powered on consistently.

I am running Homebridge software that connects incompatible devices to Apple HomeKit. It needs to constantly run.

Any harm in turning off my external monitor and just keeping the studio running constantly? Does it do any wear and tear to the hard drive? I would imagine not as nothing is written to it, but that's just an assumption.

If I decide to put my Studio to sleep instead, will the Homebridge software still run under that condition?


Thank You
Click to expand...
Alas, but I think everyone here missed a critical portion of your ask: will the Homebridge software continue to run if you put the Studio to sleep.

The answer is: if the Mac is sleeping, it will not continue to run, thus you will not be able to control or interface with any devices that depend on the HomeBridge link, like Ring or TPLink or Unifi, within the Apple ecosystem (as assumedly that’s what you’re doing with it).

The Studio (Max version) uses around 11W when idle (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213100); you’d have to determine if that’s an issue for you and your electric bill.
 
now i see it said:
If every person who owned a Mac, never shut it off at the end of the day, the cumulative amount of wasted electricity and money is mind bogglingly huge.

Example:
Let’s say it draws 5 watts sleeping X 8 hours = 40 watts wasted every day X 365 = 14.6 kWh wasted every year.

Multiply 14.6 kWh/year X 50,000,000 users = 730,000,000 kWh wasted every year- doing absolutely nothing.

How much CO2 gets spewed into the air to generate 730 million kWh? — just because people are too lazy to press the Off button.
It’s criminal.
Click to expand...
You assume every person is able to turn off their computer. There are reasons I will not get into here that justify my leaving mine own 24/7 (as well as several Synology NAS units). Luckily the Mac Studio uses much less power than my previous iMac. Now that the iMac doesn't need to be on 24/7, it is allowed to sleep. The Apple Studio Display for my Mac Studio does go to sleep.
 
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my studio is attached to a UPS and has been shutdown only when adding new peripherals (such as monitors et al)
 
now i see it said:
If every person who owned a Mac, never shut it off at the end of the day, the cumulative amount of wasted electricity and money is mind bogglingly huge.
Click to expand...

My Studio is the home NAS and it replaces a custom Windows desktop which probably has at least twice the power draw while asleep. We have a small and efficient home and Apple Silicon has helped in reducing our power consumption from prior Macs like our 2014 iMac 27.

I would not say that the energy is wasted as it's always available.

In general, tens of millions of people migrating from Intel Macs to Apple Silicon Macs has probably saved huge amounts of power.
 
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NJRonbo said:
This is the first desktop computer that I would question whether I should keep powered on consistently.

I am running Homebridge software that connects incompatible devices to Apple HomeKit. It needs to constantly run.

Any harm in turning off my external monitor and just keeping the studio running constantly? Does it do any wear and tear to the hard drive? I would imagine not as nothing is written to it, but that's just an assumption.

If I decide to put my Studio to sleep instead, will the Homebridge software still run under that condition?


Thank You
Click to expand...
should be 100% fine. These machines will do great with high up time.
 
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now i see it said:
If every person who owned a Mac, never shut it off at the end of the day, the cumulative amount of wasted electricity and money is mind bogglingly huge.

Example:
Let’s say it draws 5 watts sleeping X 8 hours = 40 watts wasted every day X 365 = 14.6 kWh wasted every year.

Multiply 14.6 kWh/year X 50,000,000 users = 730,000,000 kWh wasted every year- doing absolutely nothing.

How much CO2 gets spewed into the air to generate 730 million kWh? — just because people are too lazy to press the Off button.
It’s criminal.
Click to expand...
I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve heard computers use more power to turn it back on than if you just left it idle all night. I’d guess that depends on the machine too.

There are FAR worse things to worry about in the world than idling computers. Also, where I live in WA state, the majority of our power is hydroelectric. That power is being created by water wether it’s used or not.
 
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Jorbanead said:
I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve heard computers use more power to turn it back on than if you just left it idle all night. I’d guess that depends on the machine too.

There are FAR worse things to worry about in the world than idling computers. Also, where I live in WA state, the majority of our power is hydroelectric. That power is being created by water wether it’s used or not.
Click to expand...
I think you might want to think on that for a few minutes.

Imagine one hour at 15W/hour. Over 24 hours, that's 24x15, or 360W.

Turning on a computer might stress it a little more, all the way up to 30W - but only for 1 minute or so. After that, it's back to 15W.

If you only left it on 8 hours a day, you saved 2/3 of 360W, or 240W. Add a watt for that one minute at double the usage, and you're at 239W saved. Multiply that by millions of watts, millions of users, and the vast majority of machines that use far more than 15W when idle.

Your water example shows a basic flaw: your state's electric is 65% hydro, 15% NG, 8% nuclear, 8% wind, and 1% biomass. If we could shut down all that inefficient waste, it could be 100% hydro. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Washington_(state)#:~:text=The corresponding electrical energy generation,includes most refuse-derived fuel.)

If we could shut down even MORE inefficiencies, WA could supply hydro power to every state in the nation.

Saving energy is going to become a massive business, and Apple is absolutely right to make a big deal of energy saved. In America this is no big deal at the moment, but in Europe, where some fuel prices have doubled and tripled, if you're poor, this (Ukraine invasion, Putin, etc.) has become a disaster.

I pay around 11c/kwh. In Vermont, they might pay 3x that. In England & Netherlands, I hate to even guess, but I'm told it's vastly higher. Oh - here we go: capped at 42c/kwh (the government caps it; the rate was previously at 70Ec/kwh, or about 75c/kwh). https://www.enerdata.net/publications/daily-energy-news/netherlands-introduces-electricity-and-gas-price-cap-2023.html#:~:text=For the year 2023, prices,kWh and 1,200 cm respectively.

A lot of habits can easily change if you have to pay 7x the (USA) going rate for electricity.
 
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foo2 said:
I think you might want to think on that for a few minutes.

Imagine one hour at 15W/hour. Over 24 hours, that's 24x15, or 360W.

Turning on a computer might stress it a little more, all the way up to 30W - but only for 1 minute or so. After that, it's back to 15W.

If you only left it on 8 hours a day, you saved 2/3 of 360W, or 240W. Add a watt for that one minute at double the usage, and you're at 239W saved. Multiply that by millions of watts, millions of users, and the vast majority of machines that use far more than 15W when idle.

Your water example shows a basic flaw: your state's electric is 65% hydro, 15% NG, 8% nuclear, 8% wind, and 1% biomass. If we could shut down all that inefficient waste, it could be 100% hydro. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Washington_(state)#:~:text=The corresponding electrical energy generation,includes most refuse-derived fuel.)

If we could shut down even MORE inefficiencies, WA could supply hydro power to every state in the nation.

Saving energy is going to become a massive business, and Apple is absolutely right to make a big deal of energy saved. In America this is no big deal at the moment, but in Europe, where some fuel prices have doubled and tripled, if you're poor, this (Ukraine invasion, Putin, etc.) has become a disaster.

I pay around 11c/kwh. In Vermont, they might pay 3x that. In England & Netherlands, I hate to even guess, but I'm told it's vastly higher. Oh - here we go: capped at 42c/kwh (the government caps it; the rate was previously at 70Ec/kwh, or about 75c/kwh). https://www.enerdata.net/publications/daily-energy-news/netherlands-introduces-electricity-and-gas-price-cap-2023.html#:~:text=For the year 2023, prices,kWh and 1,200 cm respectively.

A lot of habits can easily change if you have to pay 7x the (USA) going rate for electricity.
Click to expand...

Okay, I appreciate the concern, but to clarify I live in Seattle which is 86% hydro and 5% wind. Two sources that generate electricity regardless.

According to this article, “You only save a watt or two by turning off a computer vs. placing it in sleep mode. Forgetting to shut down your computer just a handful of times will negate an entire year's worth of incremental energy savings.”

This article says “The difference in power consumption between sleeping the Mac and turning it off is only .98 W, meaning that over a year, I’m using an additional 5.7 kWh (kilowatt-hours) of power (assuming I actively use the Mac eight hours per day). At the current average residential electricity rate in my part of the country (12.04 cents per kWh), turning off that Mac each night would only save me about $0.69 per year.”

So yeah, it really doesn’t seem like turning off your Mac every day is going to really save people money or help the environment all too much. UNLESS maybe you for some reason never use sleep mode. That’s not to say power efficiency doesn’t matter - it very much matters in notebooks that are on battery, but also matters simply due to thermals. The more power needed, the hotter it gets.
 
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