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Will it harm my imac to never sleep it?


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Will it harm my imac to never sleep it?
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Fooboy
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2006-05-07, 19:46

Question guys:

Will it harm my intel imac to never sleep it? Now I plan on letting the display sleep after 15 minutes or so, and letting the disk drives spool down ... but if I wanted to keep it up 24/7 (if processes are running and stuff) ... would it harm the computer?

Now, with my windows machines I would always leave them up 24/7 w/o any issues. I surmise macs are no different, but im curious to others opinions.

Thanks!
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Kickaha
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Join Date: May 2004
 
2006-05-07, 19:48

Nope, that's fine.
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Luca
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Minnesota
 
2006-05-07, 19:52

It might actually be a better idea to turn off the "Let hard disks sleep" option. I heard somewhere (don't quote me on this) that most of the wear on hard drives occurs while they're either spinning up or spinning down, much like a car engine. Also, in my experience, OS X doesn't need a very long idle period to put the disk to sleep. I'd like to be able to set it to, say, 45 minutes to an hour, but OS X seems to put it to sleep after less than five minutes, so it's always spinning down just as I'm ready to start accessing the disk again. There's an annoying pause whenever this happens.
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babelfish
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Join Date: Sep 2005
 
2006-05-07, 20:06

Should be fine to just keep it on and never sleep. Hell I keep my laptops on and they seem to be fine (although I know they are probably dying inside )
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atomicbartbeans
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Join Date: Jan 2005
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2006-05-07, 20:12

Yeah; my iBook never sleeps while at home, and it's been mostly problem-free (well, the hard drive started making funny noises a few months ago, but Apple replaced it and it's fine now).

Just don't leave your display on all the time; that would kill the backlight in a couple years.

You ask me for a hamburger.
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Fooboy
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2006-05-07, 20:21

Quote:
Originally Posted by Luca
It might actually be a better idea to turn off the "Let hard disks sleep" option. I heard somewhere (don't quote me on this) that most of the wear on hard drives occurs while they're either spinning up or spinning down, much like a car engine.
Thanks Luca,

Can anyone confirm / disprove this?
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atomicbartbeans
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2006-05-07, 20:34

I think it's been argued about several times here on AN... the general consensus for prolonging disk life is

constantly-spinning disk > intermittently-spinning disk

Haven't heard anything on this issue besides anecdotes though.

You ask me for a hamburger.
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