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How long can mac pro stay on for?

AkuskaUK said:
So it can be left on for extended periods of time? I'm looking for only turning it off once a week, maybe less!

Thanks for your response though!
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I haven't turned my iMac off in a long time. It's been 55 days since I last restarted it and that was only for the 10.7.2 update. The Mac Pro can go for a long time as well; no need to worry. :)

Screen Shot 2011-12-07 at 12.44.26 PM.png
 
smali said:
Does the macpro use much energy just left on 24/7?

I turn off everything, electricity bills are disgusting over here in the UK:(
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When I leave mine on 24/7 the impact on my electricity bill is noticeable. I have it sleeping pretty often because of this.
 
I'm not surprised how many of you run your machines 24/7, as I've heard so many people mention this. Mine has been run every day (save one 3-week vacation) for 12-20 hours, but shut down completely almost every night while I sleep. I've heard it's harder on equipment to turn it off and on than to run continuously, but I have always felt like those few hours of downtime each day must be nice for the drives and components as well.

I have my screens and speakers plugged into an APC Back-UPS RS 1500, and the Mac Pro, RAID tower and two external backup drives plugged into an APC SUA1500. I feel this has been critical to my system's health, as I've seen at least 30 brown/blackouts (mostly Colorado weather related) while working on my system while happily continuing unabated. (The internet goes down, but that just means going to cellphone searches if info is needed. :))

I currently have a really power-conscious roommate that insists I turn of anything I'm not using, despite showing my system uses $10/month of power at current rates. What do you all think about constant-on vs. nightly shut-downs in regards to longer equipment life?
 
goMac said:
When I leave mine on 24/7 the impact on my electricity bill is noticeable. I have it sleeping pretty often because of this.
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Agreed. I saw a wicked spike from a bill one year prior. Granted I have 2 Mac Pro's one with a 4870 and one with a 5870. So they suck up the power. OS X is Unix so uptime can be years if no problems. Although the most I ever went was probably 525 days on an Xserve. Updates were needed so it blew out my numbers.
 
I'm a musician and have been in a lot of recording studios. The common practice there is to never turn off the equipment, including million dollar mixing desks. The reason being that it is the powering on and off that wears out electronic components, not being on all the time. The same may be true for computers.
 
wonderspark said:
I've heard it's harder on equipment to turn it off and on than to run continuously, but I have always felt like those few hours of downtime each day must be nice for the drives and components as well.
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A long time ago, it was true that the power off/on cycle was harder on it than leaving it running, but that hasn't been true since at least the mid '90s, likely earlier.

In fact, some hardware manufacturers don't warrant 24/7 operation - IBM got in a bit of trouble when their infamous "DeskStar" hard drive line started having failures, and their line was "these drives are only warranted for 40 power-on hours a week"!
 
I was told at the Apple Store to shut down my MacBook Pro every night. I've been doing it for the last 5 years.:rolleyes:
 
We have several Mac Pro's we installed back in 2006 that act as servers.

They have only been restarted to receive software updates (or updating the operating system).
 
My 2008 Mac Pro has been on for 47 months and isn't allowed to sleep.

Works great. No problems, other than all of the ATI 2600 video cards went bad, but that's easy to deal with. The 5770s have been rock solid.
 
Bwa said:
My 2008 Mac Pro has been on for 47 months and isn't allowed to sleep.

Works great. No problems, other than all of the ATI 2600 video cards went bad, but that's easy to deal with. The 5770s have been rock solid.
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I have an 8800GT now, will be upgrading to a 5770 when i can!
 
Mines always on, but I let it sleep and have WOL set up for network access.

It only gets turned off for upgrades, updates and when i go on holiday.
 
The MacPro's at work are on 24/7/365 other than reboots.

At home I try to leave my MacPro off as much as possible, because electricity is about $0.24/kWh in NYC. Sometimes I wonder if I should just get a Mac Mini and use that for everything except the "heavy lifting" (gaming, video editing, encoding, etc.).
 
Code: 
Decatoncale:~ vylen$ uprecords
     #               Uptime | System                                     Boot up
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
     1    73 days, 13:32:12 | Darwin 10.7.0             Tue Apr 19 19:41:43 2011
     2    68 days, 04:39:31 | Darwin 10.6.0             Fri Jan  7 15:08:11 2011
     3    58 days, 02:35:14 | Darwin 11.1.0             Tue Aug 30 17:23:15 2011
     4    33 days, 23:52:57 | Darwin 10.6.0             Wed Mar 16 20:35:38 2011
->   5    22 days, 21:57:31 | Darwin 11.2.0             Sun Nov 20 08:13:26 2011
     6    19 days, 08:48:47 | Darwin 10.8.0             Sat Jul  2 09:17:33 2011
     7    14 days, 22:31:37 | Darwin 10.5.0             Thu Dec 23 16:34:21 2010
     8    13 days, 15:48:29 | Darwin 11.1.0             Thu Oct 27 21:07:09 2011
     9    11 days, 06:08:17 | Darwin 11.0.0             Sun Aug  7 15:10:22 2011
    10     8 days, 20:07:10 | Darwin 11.0.0             Fri Jul 29 19:01:11 2011
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
1up in    11 days, 01:55:27 | at                        Sat Dec 24 08:06:23 2011
no1 in    50 days, 15:34:42 | at                        Wed Feb  1 21:45:38 2012

Downtime is only when rebooting for numerous reasons. Never sleep the machine.
 
Eep!

Vylen said:
Code: 
Decatoncale:~ vylen$ uprecords
     #               Uptime | System                                     Boot up
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
     1    73 days, 13:32:12 | Darwin 10.7.0             Tue Apr 19 19:41:43 2011
     2    68 days, 04:39:31 | Darwin 10.6.0             Fri Jan  7 15:08:11 2011
     3    58 days, 02:35:14 | Darwin 11.1.0             Tue Aug 30 17:23:15 2011
     4    33 days, 23:52:57 | Darwin 10.6.0             Wed Mar 16 20:35:38 2011
->   5    22 days, 21:57:31 | Darwin 11.2.0             Sun Nov 20 08:13:26 2011
     6    19 days, 08:48:47 | Darwin 10.8.0             Sat Jul  2 09:17:33 2011
     7    14 days, 22:31:37 | Darwin 10.5.0             Thu Dec 23 16:34:21 2010
     8    13 days, 15:48:29 | Darwin 11.1.0             Thu Oct 27 21:07:09 2011
     9    11 days, 06:08:17 | Darwin 11.0.0             Sun Aug  7 15:10:22 2011
    10     8 days, 20:07:10 | Darwin 11.0.0             Fri Jul 29 19:01:11 2011
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
1up in    11 days, 01:55:27 | at                        Sat Dec 24 08:06:23 2011
no1 in    50 days, 15:34:42 | at                        Wed Feb  1 21:45:38 2012

Downtime is only when rebooting for numerous reasons. Never sleep the machine.
Click to expand...

Is that "uprecords" part of the OS or is it a third party app? I really would like to be able to access that on my own systems.
 
Like a lot of folks here I have mine sitting behind a UPS, up 24/7 and when I am not using the system it goes to sleep in 30 minutes. Re-started only when software update requires it, making a hardware change or when there is an electrical storm/heavy rain. If I am away for two days or more then I'll power everything down including any attached peripheral equipment.
 
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