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Why would I want to put my MBA to sleep?

WissMAN

WissMAN

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 19, 2009
146
14
Lone Star state
With the MBA having a SSD, why would I want to put it to sleep, (outside of the power savings)? I always put my PC's to sleep to let the HD spin down mainly. Processors don't really wear out, so the last thing would be the fan; but I never hear it on unless I am watching a video.

With the proliferation of SSD's, and the MBA configuration, is it still necessary to put a MBA to "sleep"?

Do we run a greater chance of a disk/OS corruption coming out of sleep rather than leaving it "on"? I do have my screen set to sleep at 10 minutes of inactivity...

Any thoughts from the Mac experts (or newbies) out there! :eek:
 
I never turn my air off. I simply shut the lid and it sleeps. When I open the
It it's instantly on. Macs have a safe sleep, so it writes the memory to disk before the battery goes completely flat. If its gone into safe sleep then it will take a little longer to wake.
I used to power down my old macs and boot up every time I used the, looking back it seems a bit stupid. Why wait 10 seconds when you can have it in 2 or 3...
 
WissMAN said:
With the MBA having a SSD, why would I want to put it to sleep, (outside of the power savings)? I always put my PC's to sleep to let the HD spin down mainly. Processors don't really wear out, so the last thing would be the fan; but I never hear it on unless I am watching a video.

With the proliferation of SSD's, and the MBA configuration, is it still necessary to put a MBA to "sleep"?
Click to expand...

It's never been necessary, but waking up is just faster than booting up. If it's easier and has no downside, why not?

WissMAN said:
Do we run a greater chance of a disk/OS corruption coming out of sleep rather than leaving it "on"? I do have my screen set to sleep at 10 minutes of inactivity...
Click to expand...

Turning on a computer is about the cruelest thing you can do to it. It's the most stressful part of its day. I rarely reboot my Macs (usually just for software updates that require one) and I always put them to sleep to spare the core components the pain of startup.
 
You want to put your MBA to sleep so it doesn't discharge quickly when you aren't using it. I think you meant to ask whether it needs to be shut down after use. The answer to that, as others have mentioned, is no.
 
I just shut mine down. It boots up so fast I don't really care to leave it on.
 
i dont want to lose the 4-5% of battery per night when I leave my Air to sleep as opposed to when I shut it down, so i just shut down when I'm not using.
 
I've found the whole sleep thing odd. I've been using XP at the office (and on the move) for a long time as part of my day to day work and found that putting the laptop to sleep seemed to cause more problems than it solved.

With the MBA OTOH, I work for an hour, put it to sleep overnight and the following day, at the cost of a couple of percent of battery power, everything I had open is simply there, immediately.
 
Shutting down is largely pointless, and a relic of old computing habits.

Get with the times.
 
I think most people misunderstood the OP. He's not asking why sleep is better than shutting down, he's asking why not just keep it on all the time
 
yegon said:
Shutting down is largely pointless, and a relic of old computing habits.

Get with the times.
Click to expand...

Actually being limited to only 4gb, I would power down every few days to free up the RAM. For some this is not necessary others it is, do what best enhances your operating experience.
 
fade- said:
i dont want to lose the 4-5% of battery per night when I leave my Air to sleep as opposed to when I shut it down, so i just shut down when I'm not using.
Click to expand...
The Air battery is supposed to last up to 30days while sleeping, it means that it shouldn't loose more than 3% each 24hours (sleep time is only about 5-10hours in most common case). So if it indeed loose 4-5% each night as you're saying, that's wrong..?
 
WissMAN said:
With the MBA having a SSD, why would I want to put it to sleep, (outside of the power savings)? I always put my PC's to sleep to let the HD spin down mainly. Processors don't really wear out, so the last thing would be the fan; but I never hear it on unless I am watching a video.

With the proliferation of SSD's, and the MBA configuration, is it still necessary to put a MBA to "sleep"?
Click to expand...

Lots of divided opinions here from the mba crowd and the longtime macbook crowd.

A whole bunch of people ( 70 percent or more probably ) do use sleep mode all the time or quite a bit.

A smaller bunch ( including me ) typically don't use sleep and just shut it down at night typically. You can adjust ( preferences ) energy save under the power adapter tab so that it never sleeps if you want to when plugged into power ( that is the setting I use ).

Just my wild shot in the dark guesses on percentages here obviously!

So do what makes sense to you! There's a bunch of us who do not use the sleep feature ... plus a fun app ( free ) called caffeine that helps keep your laptop awake ... caffeine might be useful at times keeping a wifi connection active maybe.
 
for those saying you never shutdown. bs

the OS hangs up and acts weird at times making a full shut down or restart a requisite partof the computing experience.

you have to restart anyways when you install a software update or install.
 
MultiFinder17 said:
It's never been necessary, but waking up is just faster than booting up. If it's easier and has no downside, why not?



Turning on a computer is about the cruelest thing you can do to it. It's the most stressful part of its day. I rarely reboot my Macs (usually just for software updates that require one) and I always put them to sleep to spare the core components the pain of startup.
Click to expand...

Does that mean that I'm wearing my mac out by rebooting in and out of boot camp 1-2 times a day?
 
BENJMNS said:
for those saying you never shutdown. bs

the OS hangs up and acts weird at times making a full shut down or restart a requisite partof the computing experience.

you have to restart anyways when you install a software update or install.
Click to expand...

I never shutdown.

I restart (which is completely different) about once every 2 weeks, or when I'm forced too due to an update/kernel panic.

Again, other than booting into another OS, shutting down is largely pointless and is a relic of old computer habits/windows*, and is only really useful when you're going to be away from it for a few days, and don't wish to leave it plugged in and charging (in the case of a laptop).

*Nothing against windows, I've got a beastly PC for gaming which I shutdown daily simply because it can go days without seeing any use. XP, of course, needed regular reboots to keep the speed up, can't comment on Windows 7 as I only use it in the above scenario, meaning it's uptime is never more than a day.
 
How about when putting it into a laptop sleeve for transportation?Is sleep enough? Also, could it be on sleep in a sleeve for a day?
 
hey man, wake up! all air are supposed to be able to sleep for 30days! don't you know that? thought everyone does... in a sleeve, a bag or oustide doesn't change anything to that. so, could anyone tell me how many %% will an air will loose while on sleep for a night (let's say 9hours)?
 
ddong said:
hey man, wake up! all air are supposed to be able to sleep for 30days! don't you know that? thought everyone does... in a sleeve, a bag or oustide doesn't change anything to that. so, could anyone tell me how many %% will an air will loose while on sleep for a night (let's say 9hours)?
Click to expand...

Mine loses about 2% every 12 hours of sleep.
 
That makes 4% a day, and 4*30 gives 120%... Please tell year and size, anyone else is also welcome to report!
 
ddong said:
That makes 4% a day, and 4*30 gives 120%... Please tell year and size, anyone else is also welcome to report!
Click to expand...

Haha, good point. Wasn't lying though, that is generally what my 2011 13" loses over a 12 hr period - in real terms, that 2% could actually be 1.66% rounded up to 2%, meaning 3.33% a day, which is equivalent to the supposed 30 days of sleep the marketeers claim.

Naturally, longer periods of sleep would yield more accurate results but it rarely goes unused for more than 12 hours.
 
yegon said:
Haha, good point. Wasn't lying though, that is generally what my 2011 13" loses over a 12 hr period - in real terms, that 2% could actually be 1.66% rounded up to 2%, meaning 3.33% a day, which is equivalent to the supposed 30 days of sleep the marketeers claim.

Naturally, longer periods of sleep would yield more accurate results but it rarely goes unused for more than 12 hours.
Click to expand...

Also, battery performance degrade over time, so the 2% figure might be accurate too. I'm guessing my own 2010 Air won't be able to sleep for a month, but I will try to test this soon when I can let it sleep for a day or two uninterrupted :)
 
OP rephrases question...

Good insight as to what others when traveling about with their MBA's. I did not ask my question in a way to get the answer I was looking for... My fault.

What I am interested in is IF you leave you MBA on your desk at home/work (lid open) with power plugged in, is there a reason to set it to sleep after a certain amount of time? I do power off the monitor after 10 minutes...

What do you do if you MBA is at home for the weekend. Do you close it/sleep/shut down everytime you are away or do you let it go to sleep based on time? Or do you leave it powered on (never sleep)?

What are the Pros/Cons?
 
WissMAN said:
Good insight as to what others when traveling about with their MBA's. I did not ask my question in a way to get the answer I was looking for... My fault.

What I am interested in is IF you leave you MBA on your desk at home/work (lid open) with power plugged in, is there a reason to set it to sleep after a certain amount of time? I do power off the monitor after 10 minutes...

What do you do if you MBA is at home for the weekend. Do you close it/sleep/shut down everytime you are away or do you let it go to sleep based on time? Or do you leave it powered on (never sleep)?

What are the Pros/Cons?
Click to expand...

You get a lower electric bill?
 
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