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I was wondering if I can leave my new mac mini 24/7 , with occassional off or should I turn it off every night and start every morning or just put it to sleep ?
Mac MINi,
Mac OS X (10.5.1),
Mini 1.83 vizio lcd moniter, Hp Dvt 6000 laptop (windows)
The best answer to this is, in my view, that you should do whatever you feel best to do. The mini is perfectly capable of running 24/7 indefinitely, with no unwelcome side effects.
My choice would be that if the system is expected to be used in the next couple of hours or so, I'd leave it on, and possibly set it to sleep if it will likely be a longer period before it is used again, or to simply power it down if it's going to be out of use for more than perhaps a day or so.
Of my own two minis, both are in regular use every day, so they are never powered down. One is set to sleep after 2 hours inactivity, the other never sleeps at all. The former is 2.5 years old, the latter now 3.
Regardless of whether you prefer to leave them on or switch them off, a good UPS is a wise investment for any computer system!
Everywhere I've read, it says the Mini runs very hot. I have ALWAYS turned all my PC's off and give them a rest at night. I figure they need some time to cool down and need some rest. Just my opinion & my way. Some people believe turning off & on all the time, cause electronics to fail faster. I don't ! My Computers and Electronics have lasted much longer than their intended life span, in most cases.
Ah, that's the classic debate really, though none of the (many, many) studies has really found much difference between the two options. The argument goes that while potentially hot, systems that are run constantly achieve a 'steady state' where there is no appreciable change in environment or conditions in which components run, and thus the thermal loads created by powering down and then up etc don't exist. The supposition is that steady state components last a lot longer than thermally stressed components. That is certainly true, though bearing faces of hard drives and fans for example are prone to higher wear. In comparison, systems that are power-cycled have fewer 'component hours' and lower wear on bearing faces, though they do actually suffer torsional wear on bearings making them more likely to fail in variable speed situations.
All in all, it's really swings and roundabouts. In the days of relatively poor component quality and software bearings with high tolerances, it may have made a difference, but these days, nothing that can be reliably, or at least consistently, measured one way or another!
You are confusing the issue. Sleeping a computer isn't the same as walking away from it while it is running. The sleeping computer is drawing just enough power to refresh the RAM so it maintains its content. The hard drive isn't running, the video card is doing nothing, I'm not even sure the CPU is doing anything, I think a separate memory management circuit is handling the refresh. A sleeping computer is using less electricity than a small appliance light bulb when it is asleep.
Way back when I plugged in two fresh incandescent light bulbs. One burned 24/7 and the other was cycled on and off every 60 minutes. The bulb that was cycled on and off lasted about 2 months while the light that was never turned off was still working three years later, long after the science faire ended.
In the great scheme of things, powering off the computer a couple times a day is probably going to have its affect over time and (all other things being equal, which I'm not sure we can assume) and the computer left on 24/7 will probably last longer. But the lifetime of a computer is 4-5 years in most homes and it is generally retired, not because it died an early death from being turned on and off, but because it is too slow to run the newest software.
Turn it off or sleep it whichever you like. Your decision won't make the computer last any longer. It might reduce your electric bill. It will certainly reduce greenhouse emissions. And it will probably aggravate you no end to wait for the computer to boot up so you can check your mail. At least Leopard boots up faster than Windows.
Thank you People for some wonderful answers ,
I just learnt something I should buy myself a UPS.
A little background I had a desktop $ 400.00 Emachine that ran 24/7 for 3 and half years but I would turn it off occasionally, ! well not only did the power supply burnt so did the motherboard, On advise of my brother in Germany who has 4 mac's in the family I decided I would buy this Mac mini for my desk top and use my 4 month old HP Pavilion DV 6000 a $ 1800.00 machine for my windows work, guess what ! I fell in love with Mac Mini so has my 11 year old. I do have very good electric wiring in house as well as Cat 5/e since this is a new home , I do protect my big 58 plasma TV and sound system with a adcom power conditioner and surge protector, but on my computers I have only APC surge arrest a strip power protector. So I think I am going to buy a UPS.
thank you again
I always put mine to rest. Macs don't take any time to startup, and booting them up isn't as load bearing as loading vista.
If you listen to a mac and a pc side by side, same specs, one vista, one leopard, listen tot eh sound a pc makes,reminds me of the wind tunnel power macs, because they work so hard to load vista, vs a computer that barely has to work EFI to load.
