Does Shutting Down Incorrectly Ruin Mac?

Yes. An improper shut down can damage data and components.

Use the Force Quit feature to shut down the offending app when you get the beachball.

Of you mean you've used 960GB, then clear some space so you have at least 100GB free. See how it runs like that.

From what you say, there's no evidence the disk itself is the cause of any problem.

How often are you getting spinning beachballs? As Kirk says, you can usually still switch to other applications and Force Quit the problem app and shutdown normally if you need to.

If you have turned the computer off without shutting down a couple of times, then things are probably ok, but you don't want to do it repeatedly.

Angel Llorente wrote:

Do you think I should install another 1TB Hard disk and transfer all data to it then toss the original hard disk into the garbage?

No. Just run Disk Utility's "Verify Disk" check on the drive. If it doesn't show any errors, everything is probably OK (although if you start having odd problems, you might want to reinstall the OS or any apps that crash).

When you force a Mac to shut down immediately with the power button, the biggest risk is that it may be in the middle of writing something to the drive, so the abrupt loss of power can leave the file system on that drive in an incorrect, not fully updated state. Left uncorrected, the file system errors that causes can result in files being cross-linked (parts of two or more different files mixed together) or completely or partially overwritten with new files.

If the affected files are all document files, then you just lose the data they contain, but if one or more of them is as executable OS or application file then the OS or app won't work right & will probably crash.

Disk Utility's "Repair Disk" function will fix the structure of the files system, but it can't fix any file damage that has already occurred -- in fact, it will usually erase references to files that have been damaged. That's why you may need to reinstall the OS or apps that crash after doing the repair (& why it is very important to back up any & every file you can't afford to lose).

I do not think you will damage the hardware, HOWEVER, you can corrupt the file system and loose data. As the system will not have a chance to flush data back to the disk before removing power.

Now yanking the plug out of the way on a regular basis might cause a power spike if the plug arcs with the contacts. But pressing and holding the power button, will just cleanly with draw power from the computer.

It might be a better idea to diagnose why your system is hanging and correct that.

Also if you are having hanging issues, then have a good backup is essential to insure you do not loose data.

Have you run the Disk Utility verify disk step yet? If not, why not? If there are any file system problems they will just get worse until you fix them.