Does anyone have experience or an opinion on running the Mac Mini continuously non-stop for long periods of time (e.g. months)? Let's assume that sleep mode is disabled.
How will this affect the reliability of the machine?
I do this to my PC and they seem fine. Just wondering if the Mac Mini will do okay.
Mac Mini Intel Core Duo 1.66GHz; 2 GB RAM; OS X 10.4.6
My Mac mini has also been running for more than a year without sleep enabled. It only restarts for system updates. So far, there haven't been any issues at all.
I can tell you almost for certain that the mini will be fine running for long periods of time with Sleep Mode enabled. Without it, you should probably turn it off every couple months.
Ilya
Mac Mini | 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo | 1GB RAM | 80GB HD | Mac OS X Tiger soon Mac OS X (10.4.5)
1) I agree with all who posted. You should have no problem leaving the Mini on indefinitely.
2) Go to your System Preferences and select the Energy Saving Option (It looks like a light bulb). Check off to turn the Hard Drive off when possible, Select Sleep, Never and set your monitor to power down when you want it to.
3) If you have a broadband internet connection where it is always on, you want to make sure your firewall is up. Go to System Preferences, select Sharing and then select Firewall. Turn it on for your protection. You probably don't need it if you have a router, but just in case.