dumb question: do i have to turn off atv?

[john hopkins]

I just got an apple tv, connected to my tv. Sometimes I'm just watching cable or regular television, or not watching anything at all (tv turned off)

I do not see on the remote control the possibility to turn off the ATV. I only see the "sleep" option on the menu.

Is that enough? To keep a longer life of ATV should I instead be always unplugging it from the energy source?

Note that I also have used AppleTV Flash, and have a 500 GB external LaCie USB hard disk ALWAYS connected to ATV. So I'm also concerned about this piece, as I experienced HD failure with other products (ioMega to be more specific).

 

[ss957916]

I never bother with sleep - I just cut the power at the socket. No physical power switch is quite high up in my "Why my Apple TV is a load of crap" list.

 

[john hopkins]

oh man, that sounds like really bad!!!

A power cord for something like ATV is meant (in my view) never to be touched!

I wonder how many other people here do the same...

 

[northernbaldy]

I think mine goes to sleep when I switch to another AV source
I have often wondered if the appleTV knows that the hdmi connection is no longer active and puts it to sleep

but its one of those things you can't test

 

[rgarjr]

Yeah just sleeping it is fine.

 

[Roy Hobbs]

I don't worry about it.
If its on its on and if it's sleeping its sleeping.
Does it really matter?

 

[rayward]

As far as I can tell, the only thing that goes off when you turn "off" an ATV, is the little white light on the front. Then it'll come back on randomly by itself.

I love what my ATVs do, but they are always on and always sucking juice/generating heat. It's #1 on my list of "Things Apple really needs to fix about the ATV".

 

[Hammie]

I have mine connected to the "switched" power outlet on my Denon receiver. The Apple TV gets turned off every time I turn my receiver off. I also have a small USB fan blowing on it. Helps keep it nice and cool.

I have had zero problems with this setup.

 

[jaw04005]

I think the correct term is “standby” instead of sleep, and it doesn’t really do much. All it turns off is the video connection.

OP, I would just leave the Apple TV alone. It’s consuming around 20 watts per hour, less wattage than leaving a regular light bulb on. You can get down to around 15 watts if you use the standby feature.

For comparison, if you owned an iMac it consumes around 150 watts and your average desktop PC around 350-500 watts while in use. So basically, 24 hours of Apple TV is like using your desktop PC for 1 hour.

I wouldn’t recommend the kill switch power strips either simply because the Apple TV has a hard drive and you can damage the hard drive/unit by cutting off power while in use.

 

[john hopkins]

Thanks guys. But my worry continues to be mostly about the external USB hard drive I added to the Apple TV. Would it be a problem to keep it on 24/7 for many months?

The surface where the hard drive lays on does not shake and is not likely to be touched by people (it is behind the TV) but in any case I'm worried...

 

[rgarjr]

If you're concerned about the USB hard drive, just unplug it when you don't use it. Otherwise let it spin 24/7.

 

[john hopkins]

If you're concerned about the USB hard drive, just unplug it when you don't use it. Otherwise let it spin 24/7.

Thanks - and here is the reason of my question:

To unplug the USB hard disk, I must turn off the Apple TV. Since there is no "eject" optiion on ATV menu, I guess it is something to do when ATV is off.

Also, to plug it back again, the ATV has to be shut down, so you can boot it with the USB already sticked in.

 

[JAWWC]

Thanks - and here is the reason of my question:

To unplug the USB hard disk, I must turn off the Apple TV. Since there is no "eject" optiion on ATV menu, I guess it is something to do when ATV is off.

Also, to plug it back again, the ATV has to be shut down, so you can boot it with the USB already sticked in.

When I put my ATV into standby by 2 USB hard drives attached both spin down and go into there own sleep mode. So the hard drives are on 24/7 but not spinning.

 

[Bevz]

I've had an ATV since day one and it's never been turned off (well I think i turned it off when I went on a foreign holiday for a few weeks once) and it's still going strong!
The way I look at it the internal HD of the ATV has also been spinning all this time so no reason why an external drive shouldn't perform as well...

 

[ss957916]

I've had an ATV since day one and it's never been turned off (well I think i turned it off when I went on a foreign holiday for a few weeks once) and it's still going strong!
The way I look at it the internal HD of the ATV has also been spinning all this time so no reason why an external drive shouldn't perform as well...

Not exactly environmentally friendly, though.

 

[Bevz]

Not exactly environmentally friendly, though.

True

Although it does seem to prove that it's possible to run the ATV (and it's internal hard drive) continuously without any adverse effect on the hardware.