does sleep waste electricity?

Hi Ann,

From my understanding, a computer in sleep mode uses about as much electricity as a night light. Sleep is designed to save energy, as it turns off the computer's display, hard drive, and fan.
However, if you are going to be away from the computer for more than a couple days, I would shut it down.

I hope this is helpful.

Aaron Boatwright

Hello Ann:

Aaron's post is right on the mark. I do exactly as he describes with both my iMacs. Some people (I am one) also believe that repetitively turning electronic equipment off and on shortens the useful life.

This Apple knowledge base article discusses the issue in more depth:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=34571

Barry

Basically yes but in sleep mode very little is used. if you like having instant on (just like a TV) then continue to use sleep. If not then shut down at the end of the day.

I saw one comment about component wear. Sleep will spin down your drive. That means power off. When the system wakes up the drive is powered on and will spin up. This is the single worst thing (other than bouncing it off the floor) you can do to a drive. They'll last longer if kept powered up. That, of course, defeats the whole purpose of sleep.