Sleep vs ShutDown

[iHaris]

Ppl, what do you suggest, sleep or shutdown?
As for the overnight and also for bigger time periods like weekends, day or two, even more.
I found some people said that sleep mode is better and not risky at all, can't do any harm to Mac, instead shutting down Mac every night can be more bad.

I was testing once, for about week i was just putting Mac to sleep when i don't need him, and it looks to me like it works ever faster, refreshed somehow, instead of little slowness after waking from being shutdown.

Whats are your experiences?

[fryke]

Desktop or notebook Mac? I'm only working with notebooks nowadays, and there sleep is certainly the better option. I guess a PowerMac, iMac or Mac mini might use a little more power when sleeping, but even so: It's simply more convenient to come back to where you left work instead of having to boot the Mac, re-open the important applications and files etc. ...

[Qion]

Well, with Apple now openingly selling the fact that Macs "never need to shut down", I'd say you'd be safe just sleeping. Personally, the only reason I shut my Macs down is to get through a particularly nasty storm, or to install a piece of system software.

[powermac]

The only time I shut my PB down is when I am transporting it, or a thunder storm. Outside of that, I do an occasional restart.

[ora]

I only shutdown y desktop when i go away for a few weeks, and only restart my laptop after big updates. I'd say i have an average time between shutdown/resatart of 2-3 months, and my laptop is 3.5 years old now i think.