Sleep or Shut down?

SUBY · Jun 3, 2006

Sure this has been covered many times. Am a fairly new Mac user and the local Apple shop recommends 'Sleep' is fine. Friend using macs on commercial basis daily recommends shutting down every night. His reasoning is based on macs going through a 're-organisation process' during this period which is detremental to long term operation. What do you guys recommend and please tell me why.
Cheers

Rod T. · Jun 3, 2006

I can only think the difference between sleep and a shutdown is, is that upon a full startup all memory is properly allocated back to the system. Ie., if a poorly written program has a "memory leak" (memory that is not returned to the OS) that memory is again available to the system. The file system takes care of itself as it is used. So that should not be an issue.

I actually have mine set to "turn off" the display after a few hours and just leave my iMac G5 on all the time. The wife just sleeps her G4 Powerbook by closing the cover.

OkieBill · Jun 3, 2006

I new on the Mac as well but I read on some Apple forum that you should re-boot every week or so. I let my system go to sleep after an hour of no activity but I re-boot about every other week.

SUBY · Jun 3, 2006

Hey Rod,

like I said I am a new mac user and will take any suggestions on board. I wonder if 'repair permission' is similar to what happens when shut down and restarting. Repair permisions I do after every update pretty much anyways.

Once heard that PCs were not shut down (in the early days) as the hot to cold action would potentially crack the early PCBs. Wonder if this theory has been carried over into this century. I have no idea but would love to know the pros and cons of this.

Alpha Doug · Jun 3, 2006

There are some Unix maintenance routines that are performed at shut down and power up, but for the most part, you should be O.K. sleeping you system. Once a week, do a shut down and start up routine. Restart doesn't do it. I agree, it's mostly memory allocation issues. Also, if you let your Mac sleep, then Unix will run it's maintenance "Cron" scripts during the night.

--
Only my opinion. It's worth what you paid for it. Your mileage may vary! ;-}

Iemke · Jun 3, 2006

Temperature difference between a cold system and a hot system is for every electronic system an issue. In general sensitive systems are always kep to a certain temperature. From that perspective it is better to keep your system powered on. Memory leakges always occur safari is known for that issue. There are software features which could track your memory usages. Also the activity monitor gives an proper inidcation which program is using exessive memory. Just close that program and restarted it, that wil solve the problem on a temporary basis.

Maintenance during nighttime. This is what I do: make a daily back up of the mac main drive as a clone. My data is on a separate drive . Make a daily back up of my data. After that I run cocktail adn than the mac is put to sleep. This means a fresh wake up in the morning with a fresh system.

Iemke

Jim Merwin · Jun 3, 2006

I rarely shut down my Mac. If I'm going away for a couple of days I typically will shut it down but generally not any other time.

What I will do is close all open programs at the end of the day. That should help avoid memory allocation issues that conceivable crop up over time.

Lastly, take a look at MacJanitor.

http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/macjanitor.html

SUBY · Jun 3, 2006

Thanks to all who have replied so far. So far it sounds like sleep all week and shut down is the go. Pls chime in if any more thoughts come to mind.

It is 4am here in OZ and I am shutting down for the night so excuse lack of reply for the next 12hrs or so.

richfavinger · Jun 3, 2006

My Mac runs 24/7, I do not 'Sleep' the system other then in very hot weather (cool system and cuts the fans from running full blast), other then that I just Log-Out, and turn off the monitor.

Per the basics of Unix and Linux, OS X (a BSD Unix Sub Set) it runs CRON jobs daily, weekly, and monthly to reorganize the search database, clear logs, and dumps. There for I just let it go. These tasks run normally around 3:15 AM if you never modified the CRON TAB file.

Unlike the Windows world, Unix systems (Mac OS X) was made to run non stop 24/7/365, and in fact it is better for your system to run non stop, then power ON / OFF all the time. I reboot the Mac when system updates need me too, thats about every 2 to 3 weeks. My personal uptime best was a Linux file server I ran with an uptime of 372 days.

--
Rich
Nikon D2x

Be3G · Jun 3, 2006

I know this sounds obvious, but... I do whatever my Mac's manual tells me to do. For example, my iMac G5's manual says (if I recall correctly) that I should shut it down if I'm not going to use it for a few days, whereas my MacBook Pro's manual says I should shut it down if I don't plan on using it for a day or two.

Thomas

--
'Know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'

Charles Martorelli · Jun 3, 2006

Because my G5 uses so much energy, I shut down my machine at night to save the planet. It does not harm the machine to start up cold.

gourami · Jun 3, 2006

I must say my iMac (G4) only ever shutsdown when a software update requires a restart - believe the hype: Mac OS X is one of the most stable desktop OS' around.

I have used Windows for years from 3.1 onwards (and DOS before that) but have always chosen the Mac for home.

David Turnedge
Sydney, Australia

Martin Koistinen · Jun 4, 2006

Your friend may have been referring to the fsck or file system check that may be performed when you start your Mac -- which can only occur if you actually shut it down when you're finished using it. During this time, the filestructure on the hard disks is verified and, if necessary, errors are corrected.

Since the Mac OS X uses a journaled filesystem by default, you should be fine sleeping you mac for weeks before you run any additional risks from not performing a fsck.

My rule is this:

If it's plugged into the socket (mains), it is switched on
It it is not, it's slept

I figure that Apple published new security and or enhancements for Software Update quite frequently. Many of these require restarts anyway, so, I'm rebooting often enough just by keeping my system updated.

--
-- Martin
http://www.smugmug.com/?referrer=Me4TA1pmlkzF6 ($5 off SmugMug!)

SUBY · Jun 4, 2006

So cron scripts are written at a predetermined time when in sleep mode and memory allocation when starting (not restart). Always have recovered files sitting in the trashafter booting up.

It would sense then to boot up maybe every week and otherwise let sleep the rest of the time. My friend uses macs in business and suggested shutting down evey night. This could be because of the memory intensive work they do for various clients. Our local power company reboots my OS for me every few weeks anyway.
Cheers guys

RudivanS · Jun 4, 2006

any security issues with it being connected to the net and sleep?
--
Rudi

It's about time we started to take photography seriously and treat it as a hobby. - Elliott Erwitt

Craig C · Jun 4, 2006

It's my understanding that maintenance scripts do NOT run during sleep, and if your Mac sleeps during designated run times, then you must either use Terminal or a utility to run them (I use the freeware Mac Janitor).

nguyenhm16 · Jun 4, 2006

My G5 is on 24/7. My Powerbook I sleep, it's just too convenient to close the lid, open it, and have the computer come back instantly. If you sleep it, there is basically no security issue, it is for all intents and purposes off when it comes to network access (unless it is sent a wake-on-lan packet, but if someone can get inside your house to insert a device on your network to do that, you are already screwed; note that you don't have to worry about this over the Internet, since wake-on-lan packets are not TCP/IP packets but are much lower level and have no way of being passed beyond a router).

Dave Lewis · Jun 4, 2006

Actually that is the argument most folks give for leaving the machine active all night long. I only shut my machine down when I am going to be gone for a couple days. I never shut my Powerbook down.
--
Dave Lewis

SUBY · Jun 6, 2006

By the sound of it 'sleeping' yields not much beside the convenience of powering up straight away. There was some conflicting view of writing 'cron' files during this time (not sure the significance of it, tried to google and understood even less). Shut down (not restart) does reorganize and trash unwanted, lost files.
Think I might go for shutting down every few weeks and otherwise sleeping.

Thanks for all the input and I hope some one else benefited from this question as well.
Cheers all
Suby

richfavinger · Jun 6, 2006

Just as a side note when I ran PC's (Windows 95, NT4, Win2k), the sleep function was kind of new back then, and I never really used it, because good ol' Windows would crash or it would make the system slower then just restarting. Windows for me would crash every day or 2, or if it managed to run for a week, get unbearably slow, needing a reboot any how.

I switched to Mac over 3 years ago, I could not be happier!
--
Rich
Nikon D2x

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