difference between sleep and hibernate?

just like the title says.... what is the difference between sleep and hibernate?

 

Sleep:
Pros
- quick to enter/resume
- saves your system state

Cons
- consumes a tiny amount of power over time

Hibernate:
Pros:
- consumes no power at all
- saves your system state just as sleep does

Cons:
- slow to enter/resume

 

Also remember that if you leave your computer in sleep mode for an extended period of time, Windows will wake it up and activate Hibernation. I've noticed that this is especially aggressive in the Windows 7 beta, where I'll put the computer to sleep only to wake up the next morning to find it completely shut down and in Hibernation. If your battery power drops to an unsafe level, this will also occur.

 

booboo12, what would happen if you had hibernation disabled, I presume it would just stay in sleep mode or would it turn off completely if it were on battery say?

 

In that case, I would presume that it would respect your choice to disable hibernation (or if your hardware doesn't support hibernation) and stay in sleep mode until the battery gets low, in that case I'm not too sure of whether it would just let the battery die, or if it would wake up, initiate the shut down process and close all of your open programs. Both scenarios aren't exactly the best, but I'd presume they'd choose the latter in order to protect the OS from corruption.

 

if you disable hibernate, it'll disable the hibernate function. The computer still has access to it. Sleep = standby (if sleeping for extended period, it becomes hibernate)

 

If you disable hibernate via the Disk Cleanup tool, it removes the hibernate file from the hard drive. Are you saying that if it really had to, Windows could recreate the file without user intervention and hibernate the computer?

 

Um... delete the hibernation files simply means the previous saved hibernation file is deleted. The OS can recreate a new one.

E.g. this should hibernate your computer whether or not you have hibernation enabled, at least on my comptuer.

psshutdown.exe -h -t 00

or shutdown -h -t 00

 

u mean that i can happily erase those hibernate files n gain some 5-6gb of my C drive n still would not kill my machine hibernation ..

 

Yes................................

 

hibernate mode: Hibernate will save the data in physical memory to hard disk and then power off the computer. In Hibernate mode, a file named hiberfil.sys which has the same file size as the amount of system memory will be created on the local disk. When user wants to use the computer again, the computer will boot up and load back the state at the last hibernation. The advantage of Hibernation mode is that no power is wasted.

sleep mode: Standby is a more traditional sleep mode, as it reduces the power your computer uses to almost nothing. When you select Standby, the power to your screen, hard drive, and peripheral devices is cut. However, the power to the computer's memory (RAM) is maintained so your open files stay open.

 

The hibernate function relies on the hiber.sys file that is hidden in the root directory for storing the system state. Deleting the file will remove the option to hibernate from the Windows interface (ex, the start menu).