Question about sleep mode

[cornerdealy]

Maybe I'm just a newb, but can someone please enlighten me?

Before I installed leopard, my imac would go into sleep mode, but remain connected to the internet. But now, when it goes to sleep, it loses its connection to the internet and my ichat account logs out and i cant access it on my network.

On power options, I have display sleep set, then computer sleep set a little bit after that, and I do not have hard disk sleep checked. I'm pretty sure this is how I had it with tiger though, and when it was asleep, it never disconnected from the internet. also, upon waking it up, it takes a couple seconds and you can hear the drives in the imac spin awake.

So, a couple of questions:

1. What's the difference between putting the computer to sleep and putting the hard disks to sleep? Cause it seems when my computer sleeps, the hd's are asleep also.

2. How important is allowing the computer to sleep during long periods of inactivity? I've been reluctant to put the slider to never and just have the display sleep cause I'm afraid.

Thanks.

 

[joebells]

when the computer is asleep it shuts down more things to save energy. When just the hd's are set to sleep well just the hd's sleep and the rest of the computer runs along just fine.

I myself have decided to put the computer to sleep if it is inactive for an hour. It really doesn't matter. If you want a bit lower electricity bill put it to sleep otherwise just let it run. Some people believe that hd's lifespan are reduced with the spin up and spin down so they let them run 24x7. I really don't know myself but figure in a couple of years the drive in this computer will cost very little to replace so no biggie.

 

[flyinmac]

All of my Macs have always disconnected from the local network and Internet whenever they go to sleep.

They reconnect to my network and the Internet within about 5 seconds of waking up. It's always been this way.

My Internet connection is always live. It's the computer that disconnects from the network.