Turned Off or Always Asleep?

[Mr. Incredible]

One of my coworkers told me that he fried his hard drive, and had to take it to apple to get it fixed. He said that it was cause his Safari page and other apps would take real long to load.

Anyway, I've been noticing that my computer has been slow lately also. He said that it's from my hard drive.

I told him that I turn my computer off and on everyday. And he said that you never turn off a computer (or a tv either).

He said that when a computer is turned off, and once you turn it on, a huge power surges to the computer to turn it on, and doing that continuously will affect the hard drive in the long run and it will kill it.

He thinks that my hard drive is dying (cause its been running slow, and cause I turn my computer on and off everyday).

So, my question is: Do you guys turn off your computer every night, or do you just have it asleep the entire time? I mean, the entire time!?

 

[rkaufmann87]

I follow Apple's advice in the owners manual that says unless you are not going to use the computer for several days put the computer to sleep.

 

[alust2013]

I typically turn mine off every night, just out of habit, and I have no reason to believe that it's killing my hard drive. As far as never turning off a tv, that's just a waste of money. Turning it off or putting it to sleep should do the same thing to the hard drive, as it will power down either way. And given that his hard drive needed replaced, keeping it on constantly really isn't any better for it.

 

[Mr. Incredible]

I follow Apple's advice in the owners manual that says unless you are not going to use the computer for several days put the computer to sleep.

Where can I get a copy of the owners manual? Does it come with the box when you buy your iMac?

Also, do you know what the explanation would be to why my computer is running slower than how it was 9 months ago?

Is my hard drive dying, or what?

 

[SR20DETDOG]

I've shut down my PC everyday for 5+ years and it's hard drives are perfectly fine, no sign of failure at all.

Unless build quality of HDDs has plummeted over the past 5yrs I can't really believe that what your mate says is true.

 

[sammich]

I need you to think about it: 'huge power surge' is usually something bad. You don't think a 'huge power surge' is bad for the other components like a near 1 billion transistor CPU?

No, computers are far and beyond problems of simple electrical supply variances, the PSU would take that hit first if there ever was a surge large enough. Don't believe everything you hear.

 

[meb91]

I sleep my iMac, don't usually do a full shut down. A few reasons:

- I can leave windows open if I need to (Lion will be able to do this after a full restart apparently)

- Apps and files open faster because they're cached up

- I can be using my computer in 2 seconds instead of 45

- I'm not sure how much measurable reduction on wear and tear there is by sleeping instead of shutting down, but if there is any that's another benefit

- It uses 1 or 2 W on sleep, probably costs less than $1 a year. Even fully shut down it draws power, unless you unplug it or it's on a power strip you turn off, so it's hardly more power to sleep it.

 

[iSayuSay]

I have computer for 12 years already (Pc or Mac) and I never had my HDD blown up or fried because I turned it off every single day.
Yeah I had HDD failure, but because I treated it bad. I often unplug it, and bring them out to be plugged on another pc. That was back in times when external HDD not as popular/cheap as today

Whenever I don't need them, I turn them off. I don't have an extremely urgent activities that I need my pc to be turned on all day or just put to sleep

Energy-wise, it's also save some money and environment. So why bother keep your mac on all day long?? unless you need it .. just like other electric equipment

 

[Paulywauly]

You're more likely to have issues with your drives if they are moved around (physical damage) or if they're not kept cool, rather than by switching them on and off all the time.

I've got over a dozen drives spinning up and down throughout the day doing things in an array, have done this 24/7 for over a year and never had any problems.