From: Donald Keenan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Chas,
Could you elaborate or point to something about your statement. OS X , being Unix, likes to be on all the time as well (overnight maintenance, etc.)?
There are three reasons why Apple has said that sleeping the machine is preferable to shutting it down every time you finish using it.
The first one is rather confusing -- as you point out, OS X is based on UNIX, and UNIX was designed to be on ALL THE TIME -- no reboots, no shutdowns, no nothing. There are maintenance routines in OS X's UNIX core that run in the wee hours of the morning *if the computer is awake* which are a direct throwback to the UNIX roots of OS X.
However, if your Mac (like most people's except mine) is off or sleeping at 3:30am or whenever the routine runs, it doesn't run. That's why the folks who make Onyx and MacJanitor bothered to create those things.
The second reason is a mechanical one, and I'll be the first to admit I have NO first-hand confirmation of this. The theory is often referred to as the "pilot light" theory, meaning that if the Mac continues to draw a bit of power through it (as it would while sleeping) then the components responsible for "starting up" the machine are slightly more warm and therefore don't get as big a "shock" as they would from a "cold start." Specifically, this theory says that the monitor portion of the computer specifically benefits from sleeping over "cold starts," though I imagine the benefit might extend to other parts as well. It's just a pet theory and makes sense to me, but feel free to poo-poo the whole concept.
The third reason is purely a marketing one. Apple feels that customers will be happier with their machines if they reduce the start-up time, but OS X has a heck of a lot to do at each startup, and as I said UNIX is designed to not need restarting so frequently so those tests take some time. By sleeping the machine instead of shutting it off*, you get more-or-less instant response when you sit down to work, which is a wonderful thing.
*I assume most Florida users would apply common-sense caveats to this: buy a UPS, unplug the machine in hurricanes or powerful storms, shut it down if you're going to be away from it for more than say three days.
_Chas_
FL-MUG: central Florida's Macintosh User Group. Meetings: second Thursday of the month, 6-9pm, at the Orlando Science Center. http://www.flmug.org
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