Safe to leave on 24/7

[ProfessionalFan]

You can't think of any other reasons as to why we would want to turn off appliances? 🤔 🤣

Still waiting for an answer.

 

[thefourthpope]

Still waiting for an answer.

Reducing energy use is the answer.

 

[jdb8167]

My 2013 Mac Pro is so rock solid I pretty much never turn it off and only reboot to install new system software updates. I didn't check my uptime before just updating to 11.3 but I'm sure it hasn't rebooted since I installed the latest Big Sur compatible version of SoftRAID. Probably March 30th or so. My new M1 MacBook Air isn't quite so solid. It has fairly frequent issues that need a reboot or a hard reset. I'm hoping 11.3 fixes that. So far, so good.

 

[Pmartel]

Thanks for the responses
Been on 24/7 for the 2 weeks I've had it and so far so good

 

[snorkelman]

24.5 kWh X 24hr = 588 kWh at idle

588 kWh X 8 Billion (if everyone on the planet had a device as efficient as an M1) = 4.7 trillion kWh

"It's just one candy bar wrapper. Who will notice it?"

...Well if I had a mac mini that consumed 24500W at idle as your calculation suggests then I'd be turning it off long before it did so for an hour too lol, thats around the KWh of sixteen 1500W space heaters

with an M1 mac mini equivalent of 16 of those on the office desk 'Cozy' wouldn't be the word for it

The calculation would be fine, if it wasn't for the starting point that produces the resulting figures being waaaaaay out (around 3500 times the actual idle values and 20,000 times those for sleep)

i.e. 7W is the idle on an M1 mac Mini, with 1.2W when asleep and those are the Watts - not the result of doing so for an hour expressed in KWh ...Which is 0.007 KWh for idle, and 0.0012 KWh for sleep, not 24.5 KWh (which is those 16 space heaters again)

Using the wrong starting figure above yeilds the 588KWh per day At 15 uk pence per KWh I'd be spending 88 uk pounds a day (over three uk pounds an hour) having one sit here awake and idle

Which is around 32,000 uk pounds (45,000 USD) a year <eek!>

However, with a real idle of 7W and the resulting 0.007KWh, it's actually a more bearable 0.168 KWh per day

And at same electricity tariff rate of 15 uk pence per KWh as above, that's approx 2.5 uk pennies per day or 9.12 uk pounds per year (around 13 US dollars per year) <phew!!>


If everyone on the planet had one and left it on idling 24 hours a day every day that would be a grand total of 1.2 Billion KW/h per day

or 200Million KWh were they to go further and leave them all sleeping

or around 40Million KWh if they all turned them off but left them plugged in (as even then there's still quiescent currents consuming around 0.25W)

 

[I7guy]

Interesting topic. My desktop, which is on for about 15 hours a day during the week goes to sleep when not in use and sometimes shut down. I don't have any use case in the house that requires a 24/7/365 on computer.

 

[Spindel]

Safe to leave on, yeah.

I personally always turn off the computer if I know that I'll not use it for a couple of hours so mainly turn it off when finished work. I see absolutely no reason to keep it on 24/7.

It's different with my NAS, that is on 24/7 but that is because I want/need to access it all the time with different devices even when not by my computer.

 

[Fishrrman]

Considering the complaints of high swap/disk writes with the m1 series, I would think that "the longer one leaves the Mac on, the faster the drive will be worn down".

Even when (supposedly) "asleep" ...

 

[snorkelman]

Well if the drive apple have in these prematurely fails thru any excessive writes in 2/3/4 years of general usage then I'd be lodging a faulty goods claim against them here in the UK

 

[M5RahuL]

I don't even remember the last time I powered down my iPhone, iPad, or Macbooks.. The only time, usually, they reboot is after an OS update.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Considering the complaints of high swap/disk writes with the m1 series, I would think that "the longer one leaves the Mac on, the faster the drive will be worn down".

Even when (supposedly) "asleep" ...

From what I have seen online, the complaints are from a very, very small group of people. If this was a real problem, many more people would be affected not to mention there would have been much more coverage.

For all intent and purposes, it is a non-issue.

 

[Biro]

I have no idea about the software and file ramifications of leaving on a computer - any computer - nonstop. But, having a background in broadcasting, I can tell you this: Transmitters and other broadcast electronics are left on for literally years without issue. That's for a few reasons, including the need by 24-hour stations and networks to have them operating non-stop.

But it's also a fundamental truth of electronics that the worst strain on any circuit is when it is powered on and there is a surge of energy. That's why many devices - including televisions and radios - tend to fail most often as they are being turned on.

EDIT: Something I forgot to mention from a completely different angle: It's highly advisable to turn off your wi-fi connection when not using your computer for security reasons. You don't want it sitting there online for hours, inviting hackers. Kind of a basic thing but you'd be surprised how many people don't think about this.