what's your uptime?

[ignatius345]

Been using a new M1 MacBook Air, and I'm really blown away by how zippy it feels even after being up and running for a long time. I just realized my uptime is over 20 days. The Intel version of this same machine (2020 i5 Air) would inevitably end up needing a restart every couple weeks. I'm generally running 2-3 user accounts, which I guess takes a toll.

Anyway, curious to see who has the longest uptime.

(If you want to find out, open a Terminal window and type "uptime" at the prompt.)

 

[chabig]

The Intel version of this same machine (2020 i5 Air) would inevitably end up needing a restart every couple weeks.

That never was normal. MacOS doesn’t rot with age like Windows used to.

 

[frou]

These days it's more often than not the timespan since the last OS point release (which forces a restart to install).

So currently 57 days on my Mac Mini 2018!

I continue to be very happy with macOS in general.

 

[ignatius345]

That never was normal. MacOS doesn’t rot with age like Windows used to.

Well maybe it wasn't, but for whatever reason my Intel Air would slow down after a while. Maybe it was whatever combo of software I was using, but my usage is about the same now. Maybe I still have an issue and the M1 is just fast enough to mask it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[ignatius345]

These days it's more often than not the timespan since the last OS point release (which forces a restart to install).

So currently 57 days on my Mac Mini 2018!

I continue to be very happy with macOS in general.

That's impressive. Do you run multiple user accounts logged in at the same time, out of curiousity?

 

[frou]

Nope, just 1 account.

It's funny, I was just thinking the other day how OS updates force an occasional restart for people who otherwise have no reason to. I wonder if things would break down if someone went for year(s) of uptime on a non-server system.

 

[jz0309]

I never kept track, but usually reboot only for upgrades or security patches, not on my iMac and now M1 MBA (which is now running Monterey PB3) … so weeks to months

 

[ignatius345]

Nope, just 1 account.

It's funny, I was just thinking the other day how OS updates force an occasional restart for people who otherwise have no reason to. I wonder if things would break down if someone went for year(s) of uptime on a non-server system.

Reason I ask is that for many years I've liked to keep work and personal stuff separate by running multiple user accounts and fast user switching. It worked really well for years and I'd keep my Mac running for weeks on end between restarts. But somewhere around Mojave or Catalina I started seeing a lot of system slowdowns -- over the course of, say, a week or two at most, the UI would just generally start to bog down. Beachballs, slowness in redrawing windows as I resized them, irritating stuff like that. This is across multiple Macs and different versions of MacOS.

I went nuts trying to track it down but never really came to any conclusions. But now I'm starting to wonder if multiple users is the common factor.

 

[appltech]

That "slows down over time for whatever reason" part might be due to changes in our perception of time, and time flies faster and faster, along with improvements in all the technologies 🙃

 

[rickyalan]

21 days since last reboot.

 

[mslilyelise]

My M2 Air will often go between system updates and never need to reboot. I've found it to be rock solid. Currently I'm testing the Sonoma beta so more reboots more often, but usually, I never even think about it.

My iMac however is the overachiever in the house. I just had to reboot it to do some updates but here's how long it had been running prior to that. It runs Ventura via OCLP and is primarily a media server and DVD archiver. It regularly hits 3-4 months between reboots.

 

[splifingate]

23:27 up 4 days, 7:31, 2 users, load averages: 1.66 1.34 1.46

I tripped to LA this past week, and (as I always do), I down the System while I'm away.

If I was entirely stationary, my uptime would be exciting

 

[hobowankenobi]

Typically months...my record was well over 200 days, no issues.

The most likely issue on a modern computer would be a memory leak or other RAM-related issues. Reboot is the quick fix.

 

[Zane Black]

Generally I just put it to sleep when I'm not using it, and just restart, as others have suggested, when there's an OS update. However, when I was on a Bootcamp gaming kick, I would restart frequently between MacOS and Windows.