can hibernate replace turn off?

About a week ago, I just revealed how to enable hibernate mode in Windows 8 thanks to: Enable Windows 8 Hibernate Mode Option [How-To Tutorial] | Redmond Pie
Since then I've been using it every time I wanted to turn off my laptop. Is it okay if I never use turn off again? I found hibernating very useful because I don't need to reopen the programs that takes long to load especially once you start up my laptop (programs like Visual Studio, NetBeans, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.).

 

We've had this question before and my answer is I wouldn't. Things start to get bonky unless you completely shout down once in a while.

I use hibernate if I'm closing for an hour or so, but intend to open again later that day. Sleep when I'm just moving location. At night, I shout down completely. I never maintain hibernate for more than a day or two.

 

I think it is fine except the fact that it occupy large chuck of hard disk space if you have a ssd.

 

Short version: No, it can't. You still need to shut it down every so often and using hibernate all the time is bad for your computer.

Long version: Essentially, Hibernate exists somewhere between "Shut Down" and "Sleep." Hibernate mode dumps the contents of your RAM to your hard drive and then shuts off your computer. When you turn your computer back on it loads whatever was in your RAM from the hard drive back to your RAM and you're free to resume wherever you left off.

As this suggests, hibernate is basically zero-power much like actually shutting down your computer. Of course, it takes longer to achieve this state than sleep mode because it actually has to write/read literally everything in your RAM to/from the hard drive.

Hibernate is good if your computer is going to be off for an hour or two, but there's really no reason to use it if your computer is going to be off all night or for days at a time. Also, it's worth noting that hibernation puts a significant amount of stress on your hard drive, so it's not recommended to do it very often.

 

Really you can think about Hibernating as not turning you computer off at all. It will resume from the same state that it was in before you Hibernated. More or less, it would be the software equivalent of leaving your computer on for months at a time. Although your hardware might be getting a rest, your software is going to get pretty bogged down.

 

While I use hibernate a lot on my netbook, I find I still need to take it all the way to cold shutdown (not restart, but full shutdown, power-off and rest a minute or so) every three days to once a week, depending how long it's been active.

I use hibernate on it because it's my "agile" system for quick email and such, and supporting with lighter-duty tasks like Winamp and a second-screen for browsing and email, the main system it's paired with (I also always tote a fullsize, usually a 17") gets full shutdown every session despite heavy usage--my typical weekly downtime on the main rig is measured in hours.

 

I've been using Hibernation for a long time. My 1992 Toshiba T4400 did hibernation (at the system level). It's so convenient to be able to be able to resume where I left off with the various programs already open. Some may say that sleep provides this facility but I've come across enough sleep problems that I don't trust it. Sleeping computers have been known to wake up and overheat or drain batteries or just open to a black screen whereas hibernation is a full power down.

The maximum period I've probably used hibernation without a reboot is probably a couple of weeks. There's usually a Windows or program update that wants a reboot in order to get properly installed. Memory leaks are another potential problem.

John

 

I leave my computer running all the time. Currently at 22 days since a restart. Next time I am planning on it is 6 more weeks from now. Longest has been about 3 months. Never a problem.

If you want to install all windows updates ASAP you can't do that, but it really doesn't matter.

 

Okay so I've been hibernating my computer for almost a year with an exception of shutting it down whenever I get day off from work (which is roughly once every week). I have not yet encountered any problem whatsoever so I guess I'm going to continue doing that.

Honestly I see no point of hibernating if I have SSD. They boot and load heavy programs fast enough. My old alienware takes about 3-5 minutes to boot until it is completely usable.

 

I'm shocked at how well hibernate works. I closed the lid after playing a game (with it still open) and put my computer on the couch. Came back to it 2 days later, opened the lid. Almost the same battery life and my game popped right back up.

 

I think you're confusing hibernate with sleep. Hibernate shuts your computer down after storing the contents of your RAM to your hard drive. So of course the battery will be fine.

Sleep uses battery power, so that would be a different story.

 

^Yes, shuts the computer off after storing the ram to disk. When you power up, you boot the OS, which then runs a recall routine. I'm not sure, but it's perhaps possible to program s4 states after hibernate to allow hardware wake-ups.. at the hardware level, that wouldn't be there when hitting s4 after a shutdown? Anyone know anything about that..?

Anyway - hibernate actually works in Windows too nowadays. As in that it's not noticeably slower than a fresh boot, and doesn't consistently screw up page maps that had activity during shutdown So if it works for you, and you don't run a host of vb6 stuff that rely on absolute addresses to volatile ram being put in temp-files, or something like that -- it really shouldn't cause any issues.