Sleep mode vs. shutting down your Mac

[Txdogs]

So.......who sleeps their Mac and who shuts them down when not in use and does it effect the Mac's wear and tear in any way?

I have mine programmed to shut down every night.

 

[Jeremy]

Sleep. The hard drive shuts down during that as well so there is no wear and tear.

 

[Txdogs]

I guess my concern would be if I'm not at home and there is a storm, I would prefer that it be shut down.

 

[Leanna Lofte]

I just sleep my MacBook when not using it that way it's quick to turn back on. I have it programmed to shut down every night at 2a and turn back on at 8a. But apparently 2a isn't late enough these days... since I've still been awake.

 

[JustinHorn]

I guess my concern would be if I'm not at home and there is a storm, I would prefer that it be shut down.

If it's shut down and still plugged into without surge protection I don't think it will make much of a difference if it's on or off.

 

[dooks88]

I have mine sleep. I also have it plugged in to a surge protector/battery back up.

 

[Txdogs]

If it's shut down and still plugged into without surge protection I don't think it will make much of a difference if it's on or off.

I have a surge protector, of course. But if there is a major electrical storm isn't it safest to have all computers off?

 

[JustinHorn]

I have a surge protector, of course. But if there is a major electrical storm isn't it safest to have all computers off?

I'm not 100% sure, but my logic tells me it won't really make a difference if it's on or off. Although, if you don't need it on it definitely can't be any worse if it was off or sleep so I would stick with that just in case.

 

[EnterpriseGlobe]

When not in use, I sleep my Mac for fast turn back on.

 

[Brickman]

I use to turn mine completely off, but recently I have been leaving it on all the time. The reason is that two different people have told me that Macs "fix things" in the middle of the night. Evidently it runs what is the Apple version of a deframentation program at night. Clears caches, etc., etc.

So I usually never shut it down unless I am to be on the road for a while or on vacation..

 

[JustinHorn]

Evidently it runs what is the Apple version of a deframentation program at night. Clears caches, etc., etc.

I'm not sure I believe this. Mac OS is unix based which is what linux is based on. In linux there really is no defrag tool because it's not needed. The files are stored in a better fashion and organized always in real time as far as I know.

 

[Rene Ritchie]

My iMac runs 24/7 as it's constantly handling processes and tasks in the background (biggest life saver is removing spam from mailboxes so I don't drown in it on the iPhone). They're really power efficient, and in the rare cases it goes idol (not processing) it spins down.

My laptop mostly sleeps, unless I'm going to be away from power for a while and want to preserve as much as possible before using them.