let the mac Sleep or shut down??
- Thread starter offbeat
- Start date
Mikuro
Crotchety UI Nitpicker
With a gig of RAM, I think it's better to just sleep. OS X caches stuff in RAM that can increase performance, and restarting clears out those caches. With less RAM I find rebooting more to be helpful, but on my Mac Mini with a gig, I only reboot for system updates, during thunder storms, or when I won't be using my machine for a few days.
I rarely reboot mine (PowerBook) either—just for updates and the occasional swap/cache clearing. My old Beige G3 has been on as a server in an office environment for over 2 years, 6 months so far without issues. The Windows computers that connect to it are a different story however. 
MLJ_osxcom
Registered
offbeat said:hi to all !! i'm new to mac, i've just bought a new G5 2.3Ghz with 1Go Ram
may be it's a stupid question but anyway... which is better for the mac, to shut it down or let it just sleep ?
thanks in advance
Pragmatic response:
Computer & related hardware accessories do use power in sleep, much less of course. If you are strong environmentalist, then turn them off when not using them. Saves money and energy resources. Sleeping Macs & related equipment likely use less than a 60 light bulb left burning.
Practical issues, if you know you will return to use computer again within short time, leaving it on & asleep makes sense.
The arguments that the intial power surge when turning on (stray voltage transients) are what cause age accumulated damage to electrical components, leaving equipment on versus turning it off & on in repeated cycles is an engineering tradeoff (light bulb on continuously vs turn light off when you leave room conundrum).
Another practical issue is main power surges, brownouts & blackouts. Thunderstorms come to mind as well. I live in an area with severe thunderstorms spring to early fall (recent years sometimes even in winter!). Lights can flicker (voltage transients), dim, power go out for 30 seconds in several cycles, etc. Computers are NOT happy about these. You could also lose data & corrupt open files. Most surge protectors are mostly just cheap insurance & psychological feel good protectors. A lightning strike on your house, phone or nearby power lines, will do some damage, not much anyone could do about that sort of thing.
I don't have UPS (Universal power supplies, equipment can continue to run on batteries) for any of my 4 desktops in my home. That is what you need for avoiding most power related issues. While nothing will protect your equipment from everything, UPS is a good thing.
Laptops have batteries built in can easily be disconnected from main power and continued use in thunderstorms or power outages is not such big problem.
OSX is quite happy to run for long periods. I have let some (usually just one primary Mac) of mine (desktops) run (in winter= no thunderstorms) for 2-3 months with no restart. If I know I will not use a machine for large part of a day or days, or am leaving home I turn it off.
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Those are my choices and usual practices.
In the end it is your choice, convenience , wear & tear, energy costs, risks to equipment, data safety and integrity, etc.