What’s the difference between sleep and shutdown?

September 6th, 2005 1 Comment »

What exactly is the difference between sleep and shutdown on an Apple Mac?

Sleep

In this mode, your computer takes a nap in a low power mode. This means that your Mac uses less electricity while remaining powered on. The sleep option is great if you want to leave your Mac for a limited time. Like taking a dump. Or driving out to pick up your kid from tuition.

Shutdown

If you are to leave your Mac unused for an extended period (8 hours or more), putting it to sleep is a bad idea. Shut it down. Especially in the compact space of an iBook or PowerBook, it needs to cool down every once in a while.

Anything else?

The exception to this is the “deep sleep” mode, which some newer Macs have. The processor will rest, the fans will stop spinning, the hard disk drive will turn off, and the monitor will turn off. If your Mac has this feature, use it. It boots up faster from a deep sleep than a shut-down. The only visible difference between this “deep sleep” and a shutdown is the power light which fades in and out, or blinks. There is no audible difference.