How to treat a Mac shutdown wise

So I did it.

Sprang for the MBP.

In a word, awesome.

No wireless issues. No screen issues. No keyboard issues. My only complaint is a small nick on the aluminum under the spacebar. And no, I'm not neurotic enough to demand a change.

My first time working in Mac OS X and it is awesome.

My only question is, How do you treat these things shutdown wise?

Do you put it into sleep mode? And how?

Or do you power off every night?

(Let me preclude this question with the fact that I am truly not a retard I've just been a Windows desktop user for the past 20 years. And my policy is the unit stays on as long as it can before I need to reboot for some reason. I'm opting not to do this with a laptop so I'm asking for help)

Thanks for the help and thanks for all the advice pushing me towards this system.

Unbelievably gorgeous!

 

It's understandable coming from Windows that you would feel the need to shut down your Mac but you really don't need to unless you are transporting it for a long excursion as shutting it down would benefit the battery in this case.
Macs are well known for how well they handle sleep over what Windows tries to do but doesn't succeed at very well so go ahead and just close the lid and let it sleep, you'll be fine.
I never shut down my iMac unless I am unplugging it to move to another room.
BTW congrats!

 

hldan pretty much has it right.

I rarely shut mine down. I've had it running for 25 days. Normally only restart for some of the patches and the very rare occasion I go into bootcamp.

I just put it to sleep by closing the lid.

 

I got into the habit of putting my MBP to sleep using the menu rather than simply closing the lid, given that in the case of my Powerbook closing the lid did not always initiate sleep. I've always kept my notebooks in a close-fitting sleeve for transport, and in a few cases found that when I went to take the Powerbook out it was very overheated.

More recently I read that it's unwise to transport in sleep mode given that the sudden-motion-sensor is disabled (because the HDD is not reading or writing) but that the HDD is nonetheless more vulnerable to physical damage in sleep mode than if the machine were turned off.

Experts?

 

It doesn't really matter if you want to shut down or sleep overnight, both are not going to make a big deal anymore. I tend to sleep it overnight as I can start up quickly in the morning (not that Mac OS X doesn't already boot fast though ).

Another photoguy, interesting...I've never had any issue with my MacBook going to Sleep by closing the lid.

 

Now when sleeping, should I remain plugged into the wall?

Or can I sleep off the battery? Does it drain the battery this way?

 

You can sleep off battery, but yes, it will slowly use the battery as well. I just keep it plugged in asleep, no issues!

 

Actually, it was the now-discontinued Powerbook which gave me the problems, but I just continued the habit (of putting it to sleep before closing the lid) when I got the MBP. But if it's safe to do so it would certainly be more convenient to just close the lid.

But speaking of sleep and the MBP, it seems that it often does not want to wake up (much like the rest of us).

 

I used to do it through menu in Tiger. It would only go to sleep about 50% of the time closing the lid. It also had failures waking up all the time, but Leopard has fixed that for me. But I still make sure I have a breathing light before I stow it.

Well, I replaced my HDD abou 6 months ago. I started getting SMART failures this week. It's never been jostled either..... so there maybe a problem with the sudden-motion-sensor... or the drive was possibly defective.

At least WD provides a VERY easy replacement... along with an option for advanced exchange. All without ever having to talk to someone :-D

 

Yea I dont think you have to worry about it not going to sleep when closing the lid. Mine has only done it about 2 times, both times it was because some stuff was acting up.

As far as going to sleep and the hdd, I would think that when it goes to sleep it would take the heads off of the platter. Which is basically what the SMS does, so it shouldnt take any damage when in sleep mode.

And actually, yesterday my mbp got dropped from 4 feet while it was in sleep mode. After I checked that everything was okay, I opened it up, and everything was still fine. Didnt even crash or anything. So Im guessin something kicked in, or laptops can normally withstand drops like that.

 

My iMac stays on 24/7, with only an occasional reboot to get into Vista (Boot Camp). I power down my MBP when its not in use.