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Is it bad to leave ibook on 24/7?

WillMak said:
my ibook has been running 24/7 nonstop without harddrive sleep for about a month now. How much of it's life span did i realistically killed? :eek:
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The amount you've realistically killed is so small as to be unmeasurable. DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT!!! You'll replace it long before it becomes an issue. If the drive dies before the warranty is up, it must have been defective from the start. There is no way a non-defective drive will fail if it spends a few years running 24/7 sitting on a desk. If you're really that concerned, get Applecare and you're covered for normal use for 3 years.
 
I agree your HD will be fine don't worry about the fact it has been spinning 24/7 for a month...No harm done hard drives these days are tough and last dog's years if they are not defective from the start,

SHadOW
 
oh dear. my PowerBook has pretty much been turned on since February. longest off period was... 2 days? nevermind :p getting one of those Mactels when they're out :D
 
I have a iBook G3 500 MHz October 2001. It has been on 24/7 for over a year with no problems.
 
Interesting thread.

My powerbook (1.33GHz 12") has just had the drive fail (Toshiba 5400). I use the machine for audio so don't really use a lot of the powersaving fatures as much as I should (so I don't get interuption to audio streams) and the machine has been left on all day a lot of the time (always on hard surfaces and with good ventilation) and sometimes duing the night.

It was one of the models that makes rthe light-saber noise when you move it....which got a lot worse before the failure.

If you machine makes this noise then you might wannt to expect short lifespan on the drive.
 
mad jew said:
But do you really need to use BitTorrent 24/7? I mean, is there really that much legal stuff for you to download?

For the sake of your iBook, let it sleep when you do. :)
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I'm smelling some illegal torrents... :D
 
probally he just leaves it or uses it as a desktop...or he leaves it at his desk to download "legal" torrents...
 
DarkNetworks said:
probally he just leaves it or uses it as a desktop...or he leaves it at his desk to download "legal" torrents...
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Yes Yes my ibook is my desktop. I take it with me on the road occasionally. And yes all my torrents are legal (really they are!).
 
so would it be better for the hard drive to turn my PB on and off 5 times a day, or should i just keep it in sleep mode?

my usual daily routine is to -turn on my PB in the morning and check my email, -turn it off, then go to school and -turn it back on for notes, -then turn it back off after class, then go to work and -turn it back on, -turn it off when i get off work, and then -turn it back on at home, and -then turn it off when i go to sleep.

i don't know why, but i have an eery feeling when i carry around my pb too long without turning it off.
 
Don't bother shutting it down. Simply sleeping it is just fine. During sleep, your hard drive doesn't spin anyway, so it is effectively shut down. The only thing getting power during sleep is the RAM AFAIK. :)
 
mad jew said:
Don't bother shutting it down. Simply sleeping it is just fine. During sleep, your hard drive doesn't spin anyway, so it is effectively shut down. The only thing getting power during sleep is the RAM AFAIK. :)
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ic. but is it bad for the HD if i always shut down and turn it back on?
 
mad jew said:
Nope. From the hard drive perspective it's irrelevant whether you make it start spinning after being shut down or asleep. It's the same thing. :)
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Sweet! Thanks.
 
The only times I actually use the Shut Down command is when I'm going away for several days or more and know I won't be using my machine (or when I see the occasional lightning storm, in which case I unplug everything too). That goes for both my PowerBook and my PowerMacs.
 
I'm still not clear.

So what's the verdict? My machine isn't doing much traveling, except from room to room. Should I turn it off at night and during the day while I'm at school, or just put it to sleep? If I sleep it on a hard surface, do I have to leave it open for ventilation? I'm concerned because today it got really hot while after sleeping all day on a pile of phone books and then wouldn't wake up. It's done this before when manually put to sleep, so I'm posting a question about that elsewhere, but I just want to be sure what the best modus operandi is for the future.
 
Just let it sleep. It won't overheat while sleeping. It may have got a little warm if the battery was charging but generally the adaptor (little white box it plugs into) is the real source of heat. :)
 
I think we're asking the wrong question, and it's based on the question we needed to ask maybe 3 years ago.

Instead of worrying about how to make a drive last, I think the better question is: given the incalculable value of the contents of our drives, how often should we replace them?

Think about that. A replacement drive for a powerbook is something on the order of $100. If what's on your drive matters, that is nothing but chump change. Even a college student spends more than that on coffee.

While we can argue forever what makes a drive last, I think we're focused on the wrong area: regardless of what keeps a drive going, I upgrade to brand new clean and oily and perfectly running drives every 2 years, whether I've run the damn thing 24/7, or barely turned it on. That works out to about .14¢ per day.
 
Buying a new hard drive is one thing, but installing it can double or sometimes, if you go to the wrong spot, triple the end cost. Rather than replacing hard drives every two years, irrespective of their capabilities, I recommend getting an external hard drive to keep a back up of your boot disk on. It'll be cheaper to buy. :)

Having said that, I don't personally have one since I use two Macs with pretty well synced data.
 
emotion said:
My powerbook (1.33GHz 12") has just had the drive fail (Toshiba 5400).
<snip>
It was one of the models that makes rthe light-saber noise when you move it....which got a lot worse before the failure.
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Light saber noise?? :-s Care to elaborate? I have a 12" 1.33 Powerbook too.

It's not on 24/7 very often though. Usually only iMovie/iDVD is processing stuff for ages.

On the flip side I have a Dell XP machine that's now just used as a server (mainly an audio server for an Audiotron) and that's switched on 24/7 with a very occasional reboot. No sleeptime.

I'm suddenly feeling the urge to run home and check my last backups. :eek:

Steve
 
G5Unit said:
The longest I had my powermac running was probably a week. Is that bad without sleeping?
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I've had mine on for 3 months continuous. You see, I was in a gaming room and I had room 1. I didn't want to lose room 1 because it was really hard to get, so I just left my computer on and I was able to hold onto the room for a very long time.
 
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