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That’s a question a bit silly but interesting, and that’s always a little something for our planet…

First, let’s define precisely these terms.

	Shutdown
The computer closes all programs before shutting down, there is no backup of the current state (no notion of recovery so). No impact in case of power failure.

	Hibernate
The computer saves the current state on the hard disk before shutting down. When you turn on your computer, you will find all your programs and documents. No impact in case of power failure.

	Standby
The computer goes to sleep and saves the current state in RAM. The computer is still powered (USB ports in particular) with a minimum consumption. The recovery is very fast (few seconds). In case of power failure, the system becomes unstable. Of course, recent systems handle this situation and self-repair.

Simply put, I never use hibernation. It can be useful to recover your previous system state without having to reopen all the programs you daily use. But I think your computer will tend to unnecessarily overloading (and run a bit slower at the end) and even become unstable. A restart from time to time does not hurt! In addition, reboot is necessary to apply main updates.

At the office or at home, I took the habit of shutting down my computer when I don’t use it (especially for the night) and if I know I will not use it for a short period of time (e.g. to go shopping) I use the standby mode… I do not know if my habits apply to Mac OS because I do not use it.

What is strange is that there are a lot of rumors in forums, for example the fact that shutdown the computer often reduces its hardware lifetime, especially hard drives. I’m used to turn off my computer several times a day, and after 7 years, it still works perfectly…

And you, are you one of those who always leave their computer on?