Feature Request: Commercial Removal

Channels DVR Server
#21

Can someone explain to me what the issue is with leaving a Mac on 24x7? I am genuinely curious since as far as I can see it’s a complete non-issue for fixed Macs. I get that if your only computer in the house is a laptop that you actually use as a laptop - i.e. frequently take it out and about with you - then having DVR only work when your laptop is in the house on the home network would be an issue. But why would having a Mac that’s always in the house anyway power on 24x7 cause any issue?

The only possible explanation I can think of is power usage. But you’re actually going to use more power having another device (e.g. a NAS) on 24x7 to handle DVR in addition to the Mac that’s already there consuming power 24x7. The Mac will just wake up to record when it needs to then sleep again. I don’t see how adding another device consuming maybe 7-10W (http://www.alphr.com/wd/wd-my-cloud-2tb/32458/western-digital-my-cloud-2tb-review - seems to be at the lower end of typical NAS power consumption) 24x7 saves power compared to just using the Mac to do the job.

Even if you fully powered down the Mac every time when you weren’t actively using it rather than letting it sleep, you’d only be saving in the region of 6-12W (https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201897) compared to just letting it sleep. And then replacing that with a NAS that uses 7-10W 24x7. Plus the environmental reports here (http://www.apple.com/environment/reports/) suggest e.g. for an iMac dating back to 2012, the power usage in sleep mode is much lower still - nearer 1.5W.

Am I missing something?

2 Likes
#22

I use my Mac Mini Desktop most of the day working and I leave it own 24/7. I do not even put it to sleep since it only has SSD Drives and I don’t see much savings otherwise. Of course the monitor goes to sleep. But my main reason for not wanting to use it as a DVR is that sometimes I have to reboot it (not often but sometimes for updates) and I want the full power for my personal use. So the reason for the NAS is that it has the 1 soul purpose of handling DVR duties. BUT, if this new DVR only came out on the Mac first I would use an attached drive for the DVR Content and give it a try. Also, in the office I use a NAS for File Server, SMTP Server and VPN duties instead of using a Mac. The NAS is simply easy to setup and it has special server (backup etc) features that I like.

#23

I think it depends on what kind of programs the individual is running and what you use your Mac for on a daily basis. I work on my iMac and use some very process intensive programs so I have noticed that if I leave my iMac on more than two days straight my programs start to run sluggish and I need to restart my iMac. On the other hand when I go into the office and I don’t use my iMac to run my business programs but just use it as an regular every day computer checking emails, running MS office, going on the Internet etc… I can leave it on without any noticeable problems.

Different people will have different use cases so having the DVR software be able to be a standalone application might be appealing to more people. The more people they can sell this to the more they can spread out the cost. Personally if it had to run on a computer I would buy a Mac mini but the least amount of hardware required the more mass market can be.

#24

NAS like synology DS1815+ likely have enough cpu - I run docker and vms…