Sleep vs. Hibernate - hard disk activity

Do sleep and hibernate modes both kill any hard disk activity? I ask because I will be carrying my new x61s to class daily (in my backpack, on my bike) and want to minimize the possibility of hard drive damage. Is either sleep or hibernate considered "safer" when moving the computer, or is it user preference?

Mac

 

Hibernate is safer, as the computer is completely shut down.

 

Hibernate.

 

There is HDD activity during sleep mode (stand by)?

 

No clue, but I just hibernate it because it powers down the computer as opposed to sleep mode.

 

The OP is asking for HDD activity though. HDD is really the only thing that has a chance to be damaged from frequent movement right?

So if both shut down the HDD, then it's just down to user Preference?

@OP, I have a T61 and I put my T61 to sleep whenever I move between classes. No damage whatesoever yet.

 

Yeah, now that I actually take the time and think about it that is true. Besides the normal wear and tear from handling. Hibernating places the computer basically in a deeper sleep by turning off the computer whilst Sleep mode places it into a temporary sleep so that it can awaken at any time.

Art, your correct unless someone else knowledgeable chimes in. Your preference OP.

 

I think that either way (sleep/hibernation) the disk heads are parked, so, no damage will be made from moving the laptop around.

 

Hard drive activity is identical between sleep and hibernate. That is, it is parked and powered off in both situations. In sleep mode, the system board continues to receive power so that volatile memory can retain data.

 

Agreed, both shut down the hard drive. One thing to be careful with in sleep mode is making sure nothing accidentally wakes it up (at least with Vista). For example, if you have a wireless mouse like I do, with the mini receiver that you can leave in the USB port all the time, and you forget to switch off power at the mouse, then it's easy to wake up the laptop by accident, which will get the drive spinning. If you don't put in your password, it just goes back to sleep fairly quickly, but there is some hard drive activity in between.

 

"Hibernating places the computer basically in a deeper sleep by turning off the computer whilst Sleep mode places it into a temporary sleep so that it can awaken at any time."

Klutch.....

I think it's more accurate to say that in hibernate mode, the machine is off.

 

Another thing that you might want to consider, is that the hibernating process will access the hard disk while sleep does not (thereby sleep will be faster). So if you are in a pinch and need to move the laptop quickly, just use sleep for a quick power down instead of having to wait for the hibernating process to finish (don't want to move the laptop while the disk is accessing).

 

In hibernate.... the machine is off. An image of memory as it was last used is on disk. What disk I/O do you believe is occuring?

 

I agree. If you're in a hurry and need to do a quick move from point A to point B, sleep is better and still protects the HD. But other than that I'm starting to make the migration from using Sleep all the time to using Hibernate most of the time.