Originally Posted by Padawan

I only shut down my iBook once or twice per week, just to give it a "fresh-start" (a habit from my prior PC days, although I know it isn't necessary, and all my maintenence is taken care of with MacJanitor). All other times, I simply let it sleep when I'm not using it. I would venture to say that there is more wear and tear put on the HDD by shutting down and restarting than by simply letting the computer sleep and wake up. There is very little power consumption, and thus heat, while the computer is sleeping - as evidenced by the fact that a sleeping iBook can last quite a long time on battery power.