Turn Off or "Sleep"

[JD Shaw]

Purchasing new 27 inch iMac in a couple weeks (512gb SSD). Is it best to turn it off at night, or let it "sleep"?

 

[Volusia]

I generally leave mine on. Got a thing from my power company recently that says doing so costs about $4.80 per year when you use the auto sleep mode.... I do turn it off about one per week just to clear it out.

BTW, get the MagicTrackpad2 for your new Mac. Using a mouse on such a large screen is problematic. The Trackpad is a breeze to use. And, congratulations!

 

[colodane]

The sleep mode works well and does save some power. I sleep mine at night if I remember it. But leaving it on is a viable option also. If you turn off the screen the power drops down to less than 30 watts.

I have the screen set to turn off after 20 minutes and put it into sleep mode most nights. It has been over 2 months since a total power-off and everything is working just fine.

 

[Fishrrman]

As a Mac user for 30 years now, I've always turned off my Macs for the night.

There's nothing like a "fresh start" in the morning!

 

[colodane]

A fresh start in the morning is good, but I'm too lazy. The main full screen desktop I use most of the day is a split screen with two different apps. If I do a restart, they "unmerge" and I need to put them back together again manually.

 

[kagharaht]

How can you even tell if its really sleeping? The old iMacs had glowing LED lights to tell you its sleeping. Now there is none and even the MacBooks shows nothing that its sleeping.

 

[Strelok]

I generally leave mine on. Got a thing from my power company recently that says doing so costs about $4.80 per year when you use the auto sleep mode.... I do turn it off about one per week just to clear it out.

BTW, get the MagicTrackpad2 for your new Mac. Using a mouse on such a large screen is problematic. The Trackpad is a breeze to use. And, congratulations!

Just gotta tweak the sensitivity correctly!

Personally I don't use sleep on my desktops, mainly because they boot up in less than 20 seconds. It's mainly because I don't have them attached to a UPS.

 

[colodane]

How can you even tell if its really sleeping? The old iMacs had glowing LED lights to tell you its sleeping. Now there is none and even the MacBooks shows nothing that its sleeping.

If you use iStat Menus, you can (retroactively) observe the activity during sleep. Graphic detail of currents, power, and fan speed will show the sleep times including the brief waking up for network access, etc. Kind of fun to see ;>)

 

[Steve121178]

Sleep. No need to turn it off every day.

 

[kagharaht]

If you use iStat Menus, you can (retroactively) observe the activity during sleep. Graphic detail of currents, power, and fan speed will show the sleep times including the brief waking up for network access, etc. Kind of fun to see ;>)

I looked it up. $3 to see if the Macs actually sleep. I know its only 3 bucks but geez I think I'll save my 3 bucks and just turn the thing off or manually select sleep.

 

[bpeeps]

I looked it up. $3 to see if the Macs actually sleep. I know its only 3 bucks but geez I think I'll save my 3 bucks and just turn the thing off or manually select sleep.

I stat provides much more functionality than just that.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

There's no real right or wrong. Apple's put a huge amount of engineering into making machines that are able to run continuously for weeks or months on end, with very low power consumption during sleep. It doesn't mean we're obligated to take advantage of that capability, but it's there if you want it.

I prefer to sleep my Macs. While waiting for an SSD- or Fusion-based Mac to boot isn't the worst thing in the world, when I sit down to work, I want to get right to work. I can go a few weeks or more between the need to reboot on my "newer" (late 2013) iMacs. My poor, old early 2008 iMac with its original spinner is just a bit too long in the tooth to stay up until all hours ;-), but since it also takes by far the longest to reboot (and wake from sleep, for that matter), the last thing I want to do is shut down and reboot daily.

My iPhone, iPad, and Watch go far, far longer without a restart. They tend to reinforce my confidence in the ability of Apple's OSes and hardware to run on nothing more than a good night's sleep.

Now, 30 years ago was a different story. PC hardware and OSes were not what they are today. I think it's OK to change our habits in the face of changing circumstances..