newbie question: Sleep vs. Power Off

Just got my first Mac, but really this is a question because I just got my first laptop. I use my laptop throughout the day and sometimes might go 30 mins to an hour or so without using it. Should I just let it sleep? What if that time is 3-4 hours?? Is sleeping still okay? What if that time is only like 10 mins? Is shutting the lid and sleeping ok if I were to do that often?

And at night or long periods is it better to shut down or sleep? Not sure if its okay to bootup everyday or better to just sleep it...

thanks ahead of time.

I've heard that it is completely safe to either make it sleep, rather than powering down. Thats personally what I am going to do.

You may however want to shut it down every few days, just to be safe.

here is some good info

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52684&highlight=SLEEP+SHUTDOWN

I've found that when I go too long without restarting my Macs start to lag a bit...so I will shut mine off for the night once every few days. But during the day when I'm not using it, it's always asleep.

Macs can go for months without powering off. Let it sleep or be powered off as much as you like.

i just let mine sleep...and it restarts when im doing things like main menu that require a restart....

I let mine sleep so that I can just pop open the lid and start using it rather than waiting for it to boot.

It was just a few weeks ago I realized that my Macbook hadn't been shutdown for 2 months straight (even during restarts, the computer stays on). Right now, my Mac has been running for 11 days straight without a restart and it's not slowing down a bit. My PC tends to start slowing down when left on for this long :black: