"Sleep" or "Shut Down"?

[NJRonbo]

I was sort of shocked when after posting on one of these
forums that I shut down my Mac Pro after each use that
someone replied that doing so was harmful to my computer.

Is this true? Am I better off putting my Mac in "sleep" mode
instead of shutting it down?

I know that on PCs, it was never a good idea to constantly
put your computer in hibernation or standby. Even I noticed
that after doing so for a few days, Windows just started acting
flaky.

...but this is OS X and Mac Pro. Perhaps I need to rethink
how I operate my hardware.

Would love to hear advice on the proper way of turning off my
computer.

Thanks!

[KoDorSean]

I never have shut down my mac's. Never once had an issue.. Mac's are made to leave on for LONG periods of time. It wont hurt to leave it on and put it to sleep.. Its not suggested to shutdown your mac that often as it will cause extra stress to the HDD and motherboard.

[Stretch]

Mac OS X is very stable when it comes to sleeping. You have to remember that when you shut down and restart you are putting more stress on the compenents, to a point.

I think you'll find that most Mac users just put theirs to sleep.

[D3v1L80Y]

Try checking out these threads:

Power Off or Sleep?

Sleep or Shutdown?

sleep vs. shut down

turn off after every use?

Powermac, sleep or shutdown?

Shutdown Or Not Shutdown?

[PowerBookG4]

Try checking out these threads:

Power Off or Sleep?

Sleep or Shutdown?

sleep vs. shut down

turn off after every use?

Powermac, sleep or shutdown?

Shutdown Or Not Shutdown?

lol.. kinda funny because they all have the same name, so if somebody was to search before they posted they would have found it faster... all of those posters would have had their answer seconds after having the question, not horus or days.

[allansb36]

I have 20 units of Mac Pro and 30 units of Powermac G5 DP here in my Office specially in our Post Production Dept. I advice them to shutdown the computer after office hours. But sometimes we leave the MAc Pro overnight if theres a project need to render overnight.

[RichP]

From a hardware standpoint, it really doesn't matter. The thing that's going to fail fastest is the hard drive, then the display, and both "sleep" and "shut down" have the same net result on both components.

Personally, I sleep my iMac. It makes it much more convenient not having to restart Parallels. I can launch my PC apps like they were Mac native.

[ToddG]

I noticed that in some of the referenced articles, people stated that Sleeping was better because it allowed the nightly scripts to run. I am fairly certain -- based on what Onyx reports -- that the scripts don't run while the computer is Sleeping.

[NJRonbo]

Here's a new question for yuh....

Any reason why my Mac Pro won't sleep anymore?

I put it into sleep mode, it and the monitor go into sleep mode
for 5 seconds and then suddenly switch back on again.

This never used to happen before.

Someone just spoke of Onyx. I recently installed that and wonder
if its installation has anything to do with my Mac refusing to sleep.

[mac57]

There is a real benefit to putting your Mac to sleep vs. power off / power on. You have probably noticed that after you have loaded an app for the first time after a power on, all subsequent reloads of that app are MUCH faster, since part or all of it is still cached in RAM. If you have just closed the program window, the program itself is actually still fully loaded, just waiting for you to summon it back to action.

If you put your Mac to sleep each night and awaken it again each morning, you preserve this and all your most used apps just "snap" into being when you start them anew. I love this incredibly fast response, and so I use the sleep/wake cycle on my Mac pretty much exclusively. About once a week I reboot just as a form of clean up.

Tuck your Mac in and put it to sleep at night - it saves power AND delivers blazing fast start up times.

[snather]

lol.. kinda funny because they all have the same name, so if somebody was to search before they posted they would have found it faster... all of those posters would have had their answer seconds after having the question, not horus or days.

All very true, however as a new MAC user I really gained something from the answers to the OP's question. I did not have the question so I would never have searched for the answers to it. I think it's a lot like using a paper manual vs a CD manual. When you have the paper manual. In your search for a answer you may see other things that why not the answer to your question may come in handy. If you just do a search on a CD manual you get your answer quicker but that's it.

I know all you Old School mac users have seen this stuff 1000 times but for some of us, or at lest me it's the first time.

Cheers

[Gav]

The notion that shutting down a Mac puts extra strain on the hardware is ridiculous. Putting a Mac to 'sleep' is the same as a S3 Standby. It powers down everything but the RAM. The only hardware that gets extra strain put onto it by shutting down is the RAM, but the same could be said about keeping the RAM powered 24/7.

[christm]

i turn my mac off when im not going to use it for 30mins or more. my ibook often just sleeps

[NanoBite]

The keyboard combo of Option+Command+Eject button puts my lil baby to sleep in lightnin' fast time! )..( zzzzzzzzzzz

[Turtlehead]

my understanding with the Power Macs/non-intel macs is that you should not put the computer to sleep or turn the power off.

There are scripts that run each night somewhere in the midst of the hours of 1-3 a.m. ish that clean up your computer, then another script as I understand it that runs on I think it's Sunday's around the same hours, and yet another that runs once a month on say the first that does yet even more upkeep of your computer.

If you are powering off your computer or sleeping your computer, these scripts are not able to run. And in that case, you would be wise to buy a program such as "Cocktail" which runs these scripts and more on your computer, making up for not running them in the middle of the night...

Hope that helps. I would assume this applies just the same to the intels...