What are your settings for "Energy Saver"?

[c073186]

I have mine set so that the computer never sleeps and the display sleeps after 45 minutes. I manually put my computer to sleep if I am going to be gone for 3+ hours.

Are there any recommended settings by Apple that the Mac Pro should be put to sleep after a certain amount of time? Is it better for the computer a certain way?

 

[aibo]

I don't sleep mine — especially since I've got EyeTV set to record TV at various odd times. Display sleep is set at 30 min and hard disk sleep is off. The Mac Pro (Penryn, anyway) is low power, noise, and doesn't seem to radiate heat like my G4 did so I've got no problem running it 24/7, though I ran my old G4 24/7 for 9 years and never had any hardware failures.

If you're worried about machine longevity, what really does wear and tear is having the hard drives spin up and down (by sleeping/waking or rebooting). 24/7 is actually best. I shut down maybe once a month and spray out the dust.

 

[JackRipper]

I have a Rev. A PM G5 2x2 GHz that I bought Nov '03.

I have it set to never sleep, and turn off the display after 15 minutes. Then it automatically shuts down at midnight and starts back up at 6:50 AM.

It runs like a champ with no signs of age. It really could use a cleaning...hmmm

 

[c073186]

If the computer is asleep, but set to turn off while in sleep, will it wake up and turn off?

 

[bigbird]

I have my display set for 5 min and the MP for 10 min.

 

[Chimpy]

The Mac Pro (Penryn, anyway) is low power, noise, and doesn't seem to radiate heat like my G4 did so I've got no problem running it 24/7

Testing with the Kill-A-Watt energy usage meter shows that the Mac Pros draw around 10 watts while sleeping and around 170 watts at idle (the older and newer MPs are in the ballpark of each other).

See this thread for reference (amongst others.)

There is a tremendous energy savings to be had by letting the CPU sleep.

So, some rough figures:

Price in cents per Kilowatt-hour for electricity in NY: 16
Lets say 10 hours of sleep/day
Let's round to 150 watts saving between sleep and idle

We get 150 x 10 hours = 1.5KWh/day = about 25 cents a day
365 days x 25 cents = $91 year savings

So if my figures are correct, you save $90 a year for little-to-no inconvenience.