Taking care of your Mac (put into a sleep or shutting down)

batterypowersleep-wakessd

I have read this article but I would also like to know what are your thoughts and opinions on that point. I have my MBP with 16 GB RAM and SSD drive. I would like to put my Mac into sleep rather than power off.

Question 1: During the night my Mac won't be used and obviously will be constantly plugged into power supply. Is battery drain the only disadvantage (if plugged in then we consider power consumption rather than battery drain).

Question 2: Maybe silly but I want to double check. When my Mac is sleeping and since it has SSD, can I simply take it anywhere and turn / rotate in any direction (when the lid is closed)? Can I put it upside down or 180 degree or whatever? Can I store it vertically like a book between other books on a bookshelf? Is something bad going to happen? I assume that there are no mechanical items so is it like mobile phone (where I rotate my phone bunch of times per day).

Question 3: When Mac is sleeping does it perform some continuous operations / tasks in the background (like checking mail) or is it totally idle? If the answer is "Yes, it does something", does it trigger some sounds? Do I have to mute it before putting to sleep to prevent from hearing "new mail sound" or any other sound from notification center?

Thank you.

Best Answer

I have a Macbook Air but I'm going to assume it's the same in Apple's laptops.

  1. Yes, though unplugging a MacBook overnight won't drain much of the battery. It shouldn't overcharge/damage the Apple adapter will make sure of that.

  2. Yes, you can store it vertically when you have it closed. It's okay to rotate any laptop with an SSD in it as long as you keep it away from being bumped or falling over, or really strong magnets. Bumps and falls may not damage your SSD, but it could affect your laptop's functionality.

  3. It is totally idle, operations will resume once you open your MacBook and re-login (if needed). Though you may see some notifications when you open your MacBook, I assume these are notifications before your MacBook entirely goes to sleep. So don't worry about it making any notification sound when it's closed, I keep mine that way and haven't noticed any notification sound. The notifications are from sent to the Notification Center when you Login, the app that send them check the time, and if they would have sent them during the PC was asleep then they do what they were intent to do e.g Calendar etc. The PC does run maintenance script though they make no sound at all, also it can back up to Time Machine, if you have that on. There are few more things that can run, if you have Power Nap enabled (Energy Save Pref Pane).

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