[chipchen]

uhh... mduell, you may want to re-think your statement. There's a difference in a hard drive experiencing a high amount of schock due to operation (spinning at high speeds) and movement of device (such as in a jet plane), and that of a sudden shock (such as being dropped).

Think about it... if hard drives could always survive sudden shocks, companies like IBM (now Lenovo) and Apple wouldn't build in "sudden shock protection" by spinning down a hard drive when the computer detects a sudden acceleration in speed, such as a fall.

I replace tons of hard drives in laptops because people drop their computers.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by chipchen

uhh... mduell, you may want to re-think your statement. There's a difference in a hard drive experiencing a high amount of schock due to operation (spinning at high speeds) and movement of device (such as in a jet plane), and that of a sudden shock (such as being dropped).

Think about it... if hard drives could always survive sudden shocks, companies like IBM (now Lenovo) and Apple wouldn't build in "sudden shock protection" by spinning down a hard drive when the computer detects a sudden acceleration in speed, such as a fall.

I'm not sure you understand the words I'm using. A drive spinning at high speeds isn't going to produce any shocks on itsself.
My point was that normal movement (very unlikely to exceed 10G) or even some drops are well under the 160G while-operating tolerance of the drives. I said nothing about always surviving drops; there are plenty of drops that will kill the hard drive, regardless of if its operating or turned off.

[Barefoot Matt]

I just got my MBP, and I noted that the User's Guide specifically tells us not to move it until the disk spins down. That could just be apple covering its ass, but still...

[hakstooy]

mduell:

I realize I'm not necessarily gonna kill the drive by merely moving the laptop before it finishes writing Safe Sleep. What concerns me is the accumulated wear that could result from my putting the MBP in my bag and walking around everyday before its done writing. These things wear out, and that kind of use, while not "incredibly abusive" is still likely to cause an increased probability of problems.

I mean, my car can survive me driving over the curb at 10 miles an hour, but if I do it everyday its gonna wear out faster than if I didn't.

[TheBum]

Is it going to kill you to wait 20-30 seconds (or less if you have less than 2 GB of RAM) after closing the lid before packing up the machine? When the LED starts pulsing, you'll know it's ready.

[Daniel Bayer]

Oh, I don't think it is going to kil anyone. But it sure is a LOT longer than the 1-3 seconds I used to wait. It all adds up to lost time in ones very finite life.

Hope they come up with a better solution....

[Feefer]

Not specific to this topic, but I've had a PB3400, a G3/400 Lombard, a G4 1.5Ghz Al, and now have Core Duo Mac Mini. Everytime I get a new Apple computer, I wonder if Apple finally worked out problems with sleep/wake that have occurred with EVERY prior unit, present Mac Mini included.

The answer in my experience is NO: Apple seems unable to overcome the engineering issues that make sleep/wake a viable option for these devices....

Chris

[hakstooy]

That is off topic.

[Homer1946]

It is not going to KILL any of us to use Windows, but we would prefer not to because of the inconvenience or irritation it imposes. The original poster desires not to use safe sleep for exact same reasons. And we criticize him why?

As Mac users we should appreciate that it is the little details that are important because it is attention to those details that sets the Mac apart.

[FIRECOALMAN]

I can't say I am bothered by the new sleep delay... The daylight saving time should gimme an extra hour of kip !! (chuckle!)

[Simon]

I'm not going to chime in on the debate about how smart Safe Sleep is. There are certainly good arguments on both sides, but in the end it all boils down to this: The MBP doesn't have a backup battery for whatever reason. And unless somebody wants to have to sleep their MBP to change the battery, Safe Sleep is the only way to deal with it. If you don't want to hot-swap batteries, go ahead turn it off. There are always different needs so nobody is an idiot just because he/she wants or doesn't want Safe Sleep.

This however...

Originally Posted by TheBum

Is it going to kill you to wait 20-30 seconds (or less if you have less than 2 GB of RAM) after closing the lid before packing up the machine?

...needs to be addressed. A 20-30s wait is indeed a problem for most users. We Mac users have become used to and are very fond of being able to basically instantly wake and sleep our books. I'd hate to have to wait longer not to say 20-30s is ridiculous when you want to quickly close your book and get out of the subway. I work daily with Linux and Windows notebooks (Fujitsu-Siemens, ThinkPads or HP/Compaq) and I've always hated the wake/sleep delays. No matter if it's Linux or Windows, no PC notebook I have ever seen does it as instantly as a Mac. And you can bet your bunnies I and many other Mac users want to keep it that way. Safe Sleep isn't bad per se, but 20-30s is a show-stopper. OTOH I doubt Apple can really reduce that time. If you have filled 2GB of RAM and your HDD has write speeds below 68MB/s the 30s delay is what it will take.

I suggest they make Safe Sleep the default with a pref in the Energy Saver panel to turn it off. When users turn the pref off, they get a warning that they can no longer hot-swap their batteries. That way, everybody gets what they want/need and we keep all options.

[Altair]

Originally Posted by TheBum

Is it going to kill you to wait 20-30 seconds (or less if you have less than 2 GB of RAM) after closing the lid before packing up the machine? When the LED starts pulsing, you'll know it's ready.

I think that this almost forced hibernation instead of sleep would be a showstopper for me if I was in the market for a new laptop. I find the almost instant sleep of my powerbook to be a HUGE plus for things like taking it to class or going downstairs to use it on the couch. It was nice to be able to save battery power during the schoolday by shutting it while not taking notes and being able to open it to type a few notes and then shut it again.

I do realize that there is the above mentioned fix to turn it off, but there is no easy/clean way to do it and that would be annoying. I'll stick to my powerbook until they add this option. Also anybody with a MBP what happens when you hold down alt on the apple menu with the safe sleep option?

Edit: Grammar.

[hakstooy]

I agree that the best way to please everyone in this, especially the people who would like to switch quickly back and forth is either a system preference, or a "Safe Sleep" option from the drop down.

The only caveat would be that by switching back and forth you couldn't practically regain that 2 GB of space, but for some people that wouldn't matter at all. They would just want the flexibility in sleep delay depending on their situation.

[Homer1946]

Originally Posted by hakstooy

I agree that the best way to please everyone in this, especially the people who would like to switch quickly back and forth is either a system preference, or a "Safe Sleep" option from the drop down.

The only caveat would be that by switching back and forth you couldn't practically regain that 2 GB of space, but for some people that wouldn't matter at all. They would just want the flexibility in sleep delay depending on their situation.

Almost certainly a formal system preference would also delete any existing sleepimage file so you could reclaim that space. Also it would be trivial to write a shell script or AppleScript to automatically toggle hibernate on and off and delete the sleepimage...in fact....

Also my additional 2 cents. For me I don't think the 20+ seconds to sleep would matter. It is waking up quick that is important. I would actually trust the SMS to work and would continue with my current behavior of just slapping my laptop shut and going. I don't wait for the light to start flashing now. The exception (and a possible large irritation) is if it sleeps while I am using it. Like most I have aggressive settings while on battery and it is not uncommon for me to have my laptop sleep while I am using it (someone asks me a question I look up, chat for a couple of minutes, etc). Not a biggie because I hit a key and it is awake, but if I had to wait for it to finish sleep for another 10 seconds...well...safe sleep would go bye bye....

[mintcake]

Woah - what happened to 'safe sleep' on my new MBP?? I was calibrating the battery for the first time, after a risible two hours on battery it went to sleep on me, then promptly woke up again. So I kept working thinking all was fine, and five minutes later... *click* Battery empty, no safe sleep, all contents of memory lost. Is it normal for it to wake up from 'safe sleep' when the battery is low? And is it normal to get a paltry two hours from a brand new battery? I wasn't even pushing it.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by mintcake

And is it normal to get a paltry two hours from a brand new battery? I wasn't even pushing it.

No, it's not normal; ArsTechnica got 3 - 3.5 hours under moderate load.

[mintcake]

D*mnit. I'll recharge and run it down a couple more times to see what happens. I so don't want to have to send it back. Apart from this, and the whine (which doesn't bother me too much), it's perfect.

[JoshFofer]

Originally Posted by arfung

I was thinking about turning off safe sleep, but I changed my mind. I think that Apple has removed the backup battery in the MBPs.

Originally Posted by Simon

I'm not going to chime in on the debate about how smart Safe Sleep is. There are certainly good arguments on both sides, but in the end it all boils down to this: [b]The MBP doesn't have a backup battery for whatever reason.

If it doesn't have a backup battery, then putting it to sleep (unplugged) and removing the battery would turn it OFF, wouldn't it? For swapping battery purposes, I think it DOES have a backup battery, and the "Safe Sleep" feature is there to preserve the contents of your memory should the machine not get it's battery replacement within 2-3 minutes (at which point the battery backup is depleted too.)

I like "Safe Sleep." I see no delays on my MBP when waking up or going to sleep.

[slffl]

Yes I don't like the sleep delay. I turned it off. If someone isn't constantly saving their work then they will learn the hard way. I don't think 'safe sleep' is useful at all. In 3 years I've never had my PB turn off while changing a battery.

[slffl]

Originally Posted by chipchen

uhh... mduell, you may want to re-think your statement. There's a difference in a hard drive experiencing a high amount of schock due to operation (spinning at high speeds) and movement of device (such as in a jet plane), and that of a sudden shock (such as being dropped).

Think about it... if hard drives could always survive sudden shocks, companies like IBM (now Lenovo) and Apple wouldn't build in "sudden shock protection" by spinning down a hard drive when the computer detects a sudden acceleration in speed, such as a fall.

I replace tons of hard drives in laptops because people drop their computers.

I don't think the drive spins down. As far as I know, it parks the heads when it detects sudden motion.

[russellb]

I actually find my MacBook pro is way way quicker to sleep than my old Powerbook. In fact the intant I close the lid it's asleep.

Originally Posted by hakstooy

I just got back from my first trip with the MBP and this was the first time I was frequently carrying the MBP around while using it, at the airport, the hotel, etc. The lag between the time you close the lid and the MBP goes to sleep is MADDENING. It takes 20-30 seconds before the the harddrive stops spinning and I can pick it up and move along. I just sit there trying to hear the HDD or discern whether the sleep light is blinking, which, if you are in a bright, loud place, is no easy task.

I have become very used to closing my PB's and within a second or two being off, now I have to sit and wait an amount of time that is nearly equivalent to shutting the freaking thing down. This isn't really an issue when using the MBP on a desktop, but for on the go use, it is quite irritating.

To me, this delay is NOT worth the wait every time I want to sleep, nor is worth the 2 GBs of HDD space I am forced to sacrifice. I wonder if the software controlling this could be rewritten to only use safe sleep when there is a certain amount of battery life left, or if there could be a preference to turn it off.

Does anyone have any experience with the last PB's that also had safe sleep? Did they take a similarly long time to sleep?

Is anyone else bothered by this?

[Simon]

Originally Posted by JoshFofer

If it doesn't have a backup battery, then putting it to sleep (unplugged) and removing the battery would turn it OFF, wouldn't it? For swapping battery purposes, I think it DOES have a backup battery, and the "Safe Sleep" feature is there to preserve the contents of your memory should the machine not get it's battery replacement within 2-3 minutes (at which point the battery backup is depleted too.)

When I remove the battery of my unplugged MBP it is effectively turned off - even the LED stops pulsing. I have to press the power button to turn it back on and then wait for roughly 20s till it rewrites the RAM contents and goes back into operation.

There is no RAM buffer battery. SafeSleep is the only way around that.

[chambone]

Originally Posted by Star-Fire

>Just reverse the prior command.
>
>sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 1

Just tried it, dosen't work, had to restart after removing battery.

Actually, Apple's default is sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3

[chambone]

Last week I put in a 7200rpm drive, so besides copying over all my stuff I had to rerun the sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 command and delete the sleepimage file. But when I checked the vm directory today the file had somehow been recreated. Upon opening /library/preferences/systemconfiguration/com.apple.powermanagement.plist I found to my surprise that under the AC Power entry the hibernate mode was set to 0, but under Battery Power it was still set to 3.

Aparently there are 2 entries that need to be modified, so I set it to 0 manually. You must be root to make changes to /library/preferences/systemconfiguration/com.apple.powermanagement.plist. TextWrangler or pico allow you to do this.

I have not rebooted yet. This is just FYI.

[Frugle]

Originally Posted by chambone

Actually, Apple's default is sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3

yeah I was about to post that... its 3 not 1.

also, supposedly, all you have to do to get it to start hibernating again is to change a power setting. (better energy savings, normal or Better Battery Life.) and it should reactivate..

I"m sorry, please forgive me, I did not see the date on these posts until after I posted. I actually don't even know how I got to this thread. please ignore this thread revival.

[inkhead]

Stop worrying. GEEEZE people seriously worry to much. THE SECOND you close your macbook lid, you can pick it up and shove it in your backpack. And if you want drop it off the table. The heads park awefully quick, and you can continue to run your laptop hard drive copying files in the equivilent of a 5.0 earthquake if you want.

Hard drives are easily replaced, and EVEN if you were the most abusive person to it on earth, it would probably not crap out for a couple of YEARS.

Buy a external backup drive... usb2... and download backup (from apple), Once a week, or everynight when you get home plug in the external drive and hit "backup" it's all automatic, and you don't have to worry, it restores perfectly.

So backup often, and abuse the hell out of your drive if you want. Don't bother to wait around because your concerned about the hard drive.

CLOSE THE LID, put it in your back, and leave. NO BIG DEAL.

if your even more paranoid (which you really are wasting your time... seriously stop spending so much time worrying about protecting the disk and enjoy using it!) you can do OPTION+APPLE+EJECT KEY to instantly put the machine to sleep and park the heads. It's a documented apple feature on their website that says "no fans, parks heads, and instantly goes off"