What’s Your Record Uptime? 160 Days

Oct 16, 2010 - 35 Comments

record mac uptime

What’s your machines record uptime? Uptime is the amount of days since the last reboot or boot up, and this can vary widely per user and per computer. I have an old MacBook that I use as a server of sorts, and as a third screen when working from home. I realized I hadn’t rebooted the machine in a while when I went to check Software Update, so like any geek I went to the Terminal to check system uptime.


This is a personal record uptime of 160 days with no rebooting on a Mac.

At the very least it’s a personal record. Now I know in the server world long uptimes aren’t unusual. But 160 days is half a year! And this is a consumer operating system! I think this has to be some sort of record uptime for Mac OS X.

This isn’t even Mac OS X Server, this is just a standard Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard installation. The last time the machine needed to be rebooted was to install 10.6.3, how’s that for stability?

Now it’s your turn, what’s your record uptime? You can check yourself by going to the command line Terminal app and typing ‘uptime’, that will let you know how long your Mac has been on without rebooting. This is nothing scientific, just kind of fun to share.

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Posted by: William Pearson in Fun, Mac OS

35 Comments

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  1. Dan L. says:

    My MacBook pro 2011 is at 7 years, 8 months. I just don’t use it much anymore. It’s on charge and in hibernate. 2791 days.

  2. T.Sz says:

    10 yeras utime :):):)

    root@mg0 ~]# uptime
    08:02:29 up 3855 days, 8:30, 3 users, load average: 0.00, 0.02, 0.00

  3. Alex says:

    My 17 inch powerbook g4 is currently running with no reboot for 1564 days.
    That’s a OSX 10.4.11 machine.
    Never had an issue.
    Insane.

  4. Marek Staněk says:

    Windows NT 4 server, November 1998 through May … 2014. Yes, that’s 15.5 YEARS. Of daily use, as it was a technology server for police dispatch centre, controlling touchscreen operated telephone lines and radios. A 166MHz Pentium with 64 megs of EDO D-RAM, 4GB IBM harddisk on Adaptec 2940 controller And S3 PCI VGA card. On Advantech PCA-6157 industrial motherboard in IPC-6106 chassis, in which I over the years replaced 3 fans without downtime.
    Those times Will never return, sigh.

  5. Chris says:

    498 days on my G5 Tower. afraid to turn it off now however.

  6. John says:

    My uptime is 298. suck it nerds

  7. Bill says:

    The only time I ever have to reboot mac is when it mysteriously won’t connect to my mouse. Rebooting always fixes that.

    Uptime pissing contests are pointless though. All OSes are generally very stable now, except when there is faulty hardware or a bad driver installed.

  8. Roger Roger says:

    24 days at the moment with OS X Yosemite, it’s just not as stable of a Mac OS as they used to be. Also, had to update to 10.10.3.

  9. Tony says:

    I’m currently sitting at my mothers MacBook running 10.6.2 with an uptime of 497 days. I would like to run an os update but 500 days sounds like an almost unbeatable goal.

    Tony

  10. […] when I thought my personal record uptime of 160 days on a MacBook server was exciting, one of our readers blew my uptime away… by […]

  11. Woodgie says:

    Just had a check over a bunch of servers I admin and one venerable database server has an uptime of 320 days.

    I remember working at a university where one of the VMS servers hadn’t been rebooted in over a decade..! I think it had to be taken down when the data centre moved but was soon brought back on line again. Hell, that was about 6 years ago so I’m betting it has a 6 year uptime at the moment :)

  12. phoenix says:

    I think using uptime as challenge and be proud of how long is my system bit silly.
    Two main reasons
    1. It uses more electricity then it needs (say goodbye going green)
    2. If there are new security updates your computer is left unprotected for very long time.

  13. Land Of Tech says:

    Longest was 1 whole day on my MBP lol. when i get an iMac then i would hardly turn it off….. well maybe, if im not using it for the night id rather save electricty.

  14. Cakes says:

    7 months was my high on a Linux media server. Maybe a month in Mac OS X.

  15. Brad Zimmerman says:

    Not to burst anyone’s bubble, but about 10 years ago I hit 100+ days on a PC I had at home running Windows NT. I should note that this was my primary machine at the time, not something I had sitting in a corner. THAT was an amazing amount of uptime considering the OS.

    I often go about a month or so between reboots on my MBP but with the occasional security update I am uncomfortable waiting too long to apply those updates. An old Thinkpad I have that is running Ubuntu is probably the machine that goes longest between reboots now.

    Nonetheless, 160 days without a reboot is a good indication of a stable machine – good deal.

  16. LordZedd says:

    My G5 has been running 24/7 for the last 4 years with only resets for software updates.

  17. Stephan says:

    my iBook G3 has an uptime of 454 days. Using MacOSX 10.4.11, I use it to monitor my house electricity using a CurrentCost.

    http://twitpic.com/2yfrh8

  18. DarkFame says:

    I’ve had 70+ days uptime on my iPad once.

  19. Thomas says:

    We had a Mac Mini at work that was up about four years. When it was turned off, it wouldn’t turn back on but we got our money’s worth outta that little box.

  20. Neoman says:

    Mine was about a month, but I’m not seeking to reach the record, because I’m turning off my Mac when I don’t use it for a weekend or so… Average is few days without rebooting. Saw sam macs having >100 days. But I think for the unix like system if it stable this is not real big thing :) Having servers with 1 or 2 years uptimes :)

  21. Starbuck says:

    I think my tops must be a few months and average a couple weeks

  22. frin says:

    160 is nothing for Unix based system. We have a compuer running Arch Linux at work that has current uptime of 527 on the most crappiest PC we could find, and it is heavily loaded during weekdays. I am surprised it lasted that long on that cheap stuff, usually we have problems with HP servers (partially) dying within a month. And I am sure even 527 is nothing compared to years of uptime some people have.

    And yes, I think Linux and Mac OS X systems are comparable and should have about same stability.

    • icebreaker says:

      We have the some problem at work so we stopped using HP servers. The weird thing is that they don’t die at once, they slowly die after a month. It is like taking care of a sick patient before it dies anyway.

  23. Dave M. says:

    So Will, how much do you use this computer that has been running for more than 160 days?

    My Mac Pro barely lasts a week without having to be rebooted. Well, to be fair, it doesn’t “have” to be rebooted, but I have been having issues with the Finder and pixelated icon images ever since upgrading to Snow Leopard. Rebooting clears up the problem for a short while, but if I don’t reboot, icons start disappearing from finder windows.

    Aside from that problem, System Updates and updates to iTunes/Quicktime typically force a reboot. So I have to wonder how much this 160+ day computer is actually used.

    I have a MacBook hooked up to my Home Entertainment system that goes for a decent amount of time between reboots, but even that computer will stop functioning after about 3 to 4 months.

    • Will says:

      Dave, it gets used most days. It’s basically a MAMP server and provides additional screen real estate thanks to Synergy.

      I’ve ran into the pixelated artifacts and icon/image problem before too and I had to do a clean Snow Leopard install to stop it, I wish I knew the culprit.

      I’m surprised the MacBook has been up as long as it has, I will generally quit all the open apps every once in a while and relaunch them, but that’s about it. I need to install a few system updates though so it might get a reboot soon.

  24. razor says:

    Which font are you using for your Terminal?

  25. snowr says:

    i think my longest was 2 months, software updates usually force me to reboot on a semi regular basis

  26. Jared says:

    You have me beat by 152 days, LOL

    $ uptime
    16:31 up 8 days, 4:26, 4 users, load averages: 0.66 0.57 0.53

    MacBook Pro w/ Mac 10.6.4

    • Will says:

      Hey, 8 days is still pretty nice without rebooting… try that on a Windows machine.

      • icebreaker says:

        Windows exchange server is up 360 days a year. Without using it to much or without upgrading/updating any operating system can last that long.

        • Paul Alves says:

          I have an uptime of over 100 days quite often on my Mac running OS X. With heavy daily use including audio and video work, no need for rebooting unless I have an OS upgrade or a power outage that lasts longer than my battery.

          At work, sometimes we have to reboot the XP machines more than once in a day.

      • John says:

        I had Windows XP up and running for 47 days on a nine-year-old Dell laptop over the holidays, and only rebooted to get an update installed. The days when you couldn’t go days at a time with Windows stable ended with the phasing out of Windows 95/98/Me.

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