Sleep vs Hibernate

Which is better?
Doesn't hibernate take up some HD space?
What are the advantages/disadvantages? My friends all use hibernate on their laptops instead of sleep, so i was wondering if there is any upside to using hibernate.

 

I use sleep mainly, b/c it is quicker to start up from sleep. As to which is better,they both have pro's and con's. Hibernating is about the same as shutting the computer down, but when you wake it back up your drivers/boot-up programs/ misc are already up and running; putting your computer to sleep is for short-term only and could lose your data (hard shut-off) from being asleep to long or gets to hot.

 

Sleep uses 10 times (not an exact percent but it's a lot) more energy than hibernate for a relative sort amount of start up time. Therefore, unless you absolutely, positively need instantaneous wake up, save energy, an relocate sleep to that time saving measure people used to do way back when.

 

10charrrrrrr

 

Hibernate uses no energy after the data is written to the HDD - the laptop is effectively off.
Sleep - my Vaio needs about 5% per hour - so there is a guide on energy consumption. (62.000Wh battery)

Even if you are plugged in sleep doesn't have to be better - your computer is running and using electricity.

Sleep is meant for people who move from A to B and need their laptop back quickly - e.g. walk to conference, open laptop - you want it available, not wait for it to boot.
On a SSD you could.

Hibernation is meant for loner storage.

I don't think either of you alluded to a little Windows ability Vista & later

Hybrid sleep - you close the lid - the laptop goes into sleep mode, the battery is drained too low and writes the RAM to the Disc and the laptop hibernates.
This prevents accidental data loss (data in RAM needs electricity) if the battery dies.

 

True, until the release of Win7. Win7 actually uses less. I don't have the specs at hand but it appears that it only writes active memory to disk. As fas as I can tell it doesn't bother with stuff that COULD be paged out. It reloads those AFTER it wakes from hibernation. I discovered this when my hibernate and wake times dropped noticeably in Win7.

Gary

 

AFAIK, the heat generated by Sleep mode isn't going to be enough to make it too hot. I have left mine in a case asleep for hours, and it hasn't been affected.

 

I turned hibernate off... I need that disk space and rarely bother using it.

Depending on your configuration, a cold boot may be faster than resuming from hibernate... in which case, hibernate is still useful as the dead battery action (as you may have unsaved work), but the rest of the time... what's the point?

Hibernate uses (practically, before someone goes and uses a watt meter to check) no power. Which, for most computers, is required when switching batteries. (Some older Apple laptops actually have a secondary battery that'll keep the computer asleep for a couple minutes while swapping batteries)

If Hibernate is enabled, it keeps a file that is sufficiently large to hold all your memory. So if your disk is near full, you can reclaim some space by turning it off.

Hibernate takes longer both turning off and turning on, and takes longer the more memory you have.

Sleep, on the other hand, uses very little energy. In my personal experience, low enough that it doesn't matter, but this is going to vary from model to model. You can't swap batteries while asleep without losing data in most machines.

Which is "better" depends on your standpoint... from a pure energy savings, hibernate is better. From a usability standpoint, sleep is probably better because of the time hibernate takes.

But don't forget about shutting down either. Sometimes it's the best option.

 

I found a lot of variability in the amount of energy used during sleep. My Lenovo used very little power, and my HP seems to use a lot more.

Sleep is good for most situations, but hibernate is better when the system will be off a bit longer and/or you want to conserve power.

To be honest, win 7 boots up quicky enough on my i7 720 so it almost does not matter....

R

 

I'm pretty sure that's not a good idea. And I also pretty sure if continued it will eventually shorten the life of your components.

Incidentally, I tried that once just to walk across campus and in the confines of my backpack the heat nearly cooked my back (I could smell the laptop!). I never tried that again.

 

Wow. I've never had a computer that generated any noticeable heat while asleep.

My macbook, left asleep overnight, would be cold to the touch.
This dell, well, is plastic so it doesn't feel so cold... but it certainly isn't warm in any way.

If sleep is properly implemented, there really shouldn't be anything that generates much heat - if any - left powered.

 

Yea, my laptop also doesn't produce any noticeable heat during sleep.

 

Different laptops sleep differently. There are some laptops that still have the fan running while asleep, and it doesn't turn off properly, therefore the vents get blocked while in a bag. If yours is doing that I think it may not be sleeping properly. Mine generates absolutely no heat that I can feel from the casing, and the fan and other moving parts turn off. See if yours in Sleep mode has the fan still running. I know of someone who owns an Acer Aspire 6930G and his doesn't turn off properly either.

 

All laptops I've ever used are indistinguishable in sleep and off states, aside from the indicator light. There's nearly no heat generated at all, so that is a non-issue, really.

I disabled hibernation on my T500, mainly because I do not want to waste 4GB of space on my 80GB SSD for a feature I use only rarely. Besides, my computer boots fast enough that it takes away most of hibernation's benefits.

 

Gonna go out on a limb here, and suggest that your laptop did NOT actually go into sleep mode at all. It's happened to me a few times, close the laptop's lid, pack up and go home for the evening, only to discover as I pull it out of the car that the bag is REALLY hot. Of course, usually, it goes to sleep just fine.

 

I agree here - your laptop didn't go into sleep mode or woke up.

Sleep will not produce any heat - or if the RAM modules do produce some - its so little that it has no effect at all.
Its not different from manufacturer to manufacturer - at least in the way that the laptop will be virtually turned off but information is retained in the RAM.

 

I use both sleep and hibernate. Hibernate is very good if you want to turn of the computer and someone (my gf) is logged in and locked.

 

I used to be a hibernate freak. I liked knowing that nothing was draining my battery and my hard drive was safe from physical damage. I was wrong. Sleeping barely takes up any power. I've actually gone for about a week and a half in sleep mode with a ~2006 dell. Also, the pin goes off the hard drive so it's safe as it can be from physical harm.

Also, things aren't laggy when you start it up.

 

Yeah, I can leave my laptops sleeping for weeks and there is less than a 10% battery drain.

 

Sleep uses less power on a laptop than a desktop but it still uses significantly more than hibernate. Make no mistake, the two are not interchangeable.

 

If I wanted to use Hibernate, I'd probably just shut mine down if I didn't have any work I needed to keep running. Mine boots only about 10 or 15 seconds slower than coming out of hibernation.

 

I have always preferred hibernate. Closes down quickly, boots up fast and with the newer larger HD models storage should not be a problem.

 

I always hated sleep. Ever since our first computer, sleep has caused problems. Either the computer freezes, shuts off after waking up, or becomes obscenely slow.

 

Then something is wrong with your computer/your drivers/your OS.

 

Same thing happens with my desktop in Vista. I think it's because I didn't uninstall the previous graphics driver when updating...

Long story short, I learned my lesson. I'm not messing up my Windows 7 drive.