Windows Hibernation - Does Anybody Find This Helpful?

bdeustis

bdeustis

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Among other things, when I first assess a computer's (mis) behavior is hibernation.

Generally, I kill it cmd.exe powercfg -h off

I prefer sleep -- yes it burns the battery, but on slower boxes it responds far more more quickly than swapping 4,6,8 GB off an old HDD to memory.

I have begun to leave it on for SSD enabled machines as the load time to resume is tolerable.

What do others think?
 
I'm not sure even how to put a PC into hibernation and for the most part Sleep isn't used any more since SSDs are predominant.
 
This is a personal choice, of course. I routinely disable both sleep and hibernation on my own computers. My desktops are all on battery backups that are connected so that a normal shutdown will be triggered if an outage lasts long enought to deplete the battery. I have a laptop, and that will sleep after a long timeout, but I don't think I've ever done that intentionally.

Some people want to use their laptop like their favorite tv characters, though and you need sleep mode for that. You know, you're typing out the nuclear launch codes you clandestinely stole from the under cover operative, you hear a twig snap outside your door, so you slam the lid closed (saving is for suckers) and bolt out the side window to continue your nefarious adventure. One 20-minute, bullet-riddled car chase later, you arrive at the mountain cabin, whereupon you open the lid, the laptop springs to life in nanoseconds and you continue right where you left off. It miraculously sends the missive (along with the large, flashing red dialog stating "File Sent!") despite no possible internet connection and the day is saved.

None of that would be possible without "instant sleep", a feature only available to movie studios, I guess - I've never found it on the OS's available to us mere mortals.
 
Computer Bloke said:
I'm afraid I must respectfully disagree.

One of the many joys of living in a rural environment is that you can't depend on the electricity supply, and when you experience up to a dozen power outages a year then you quickly learn to appreciate hibernation and hybrid sleep.

Assuming that a typical desktop computer without a UPS is used eight hours a day then using hibernation instead of sleep reduces the chance of damage or data loss caused by an unexpected power outage by at least a factor of three. This is also true for any UPS-backed machine if the power outage is longer than the UPS battery runtime, which is usually the case here. That's got to be worth something.

For laptops you can probably get away with turning off hibernation / hybrid sleep simply because in most cases the battery will keep the computer alive (but asleep) for longer than a typical outage or deliberate disconnection from AC power, but there's still a risk of data loss or damage if the computer is left to sleep on battery power for a period of days or weeks - over a long weekend or while the user is away on holiday, perhaps. It's a bit of an edge case but still needs to be considered.
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Good points. Atlanta is Urban and we have power outages far more than 12 times a year I'm sad to say. As such, most everyone uses surge protectors which covers the power spikes and such. Many have UPS and a few have diesel generators much to the dismay of their neighbors.
 
HCHTech said:
This is a personal choice, of course. I routinely disable both sleep and hibernation on my own computers. My desktops are all on battery backups that are connected so that a normal shutdown will be triggered if an outage lasts long enought to deplete the battery. I have a laptop, and that will sleep after a long timeout, but I don't think I've ever done that intentionally.

Some people want to use their laptop like their favorite tv characters, though and you need sleep mode for that. You know, you're typing out the nuclear launch codes you clandestinely stole from the under cover operative, you hear a twig snap outside your door, so you slam the lid closed (saving is for suckers) and bolt out the side window to continue your nefarious adventure. One 20-minute, bullet-riddled car chase later, you arrive at the mountain cabin, whereupon you open the lid, the laptop springs to life in nanoseconds and you continue right where you left off. It miraculously sends the missive (along with the large, flashing red dialog stating "File Sent!") despite no possible internet connection and the day is saved.

None of that would be possible without "instant sleep", a feature only available to movie studios, I guess - I've never found it on the OS's available to us mere mortals.
Click to expand...

Certainly not possible with hibernation... Wake up from Sleep is pretty quick on newer boxes
 
HCHTech said:
This is a personal choice, of course. I routinely disable both sleep and hibernation on my own computers. My desktops are all on battery backups that are connected so that a normal shutdown will be triggered if an outage lasts long enought to deplete the battery. I have a laptop, and that will sleep after a long timeout, but I don't think I've ever done that intentionally.

Some people want to use their laptop like their favorite tv characters, though and you need sleep mode for that. You know, you're typing out the nuclear launch codes you clandestinely stole from the under cover operative, you hear a twig snap outside your door, so you slam the lid closed (saving is for suckers) and bolt out the side window to continue your nefarious adventure. One 20-minute, bullet-riddled car chase later, you arrive at the mountain cabin, whereupon you open the lid, the laptop springs to life in nanoseconds and you continue right where you left off. It miraculously sends the missive (along with the large, flashing red dialog stating "File Sent!") despite no possible internet connection and the day is saved.

None of that would be possible without "instant sleep", a feature only available to movie studios, I guess - I've never found it on the OS's available to us mere mortals.
Click to expand...
@HCHTech, what are you drinking? I'll have some, please.
 
For my clients I normally turn off Hibernation and sleep. I set the laptop to shutdown when the power button is pressed or the lid closes. They seem to like that better. Besides, When I get laptops in they tend to be in either hibernation or sleep mode and the customer doesnt even realize it. They think that its shutdown.

For my in shop systems ... well, I dont even have a laptop. I use desktop/servers with UPS for backup power and shutdown capabilities when the batteries start to run out. My mythtv box up in the Den though is abused quite a bit as it doesnt have any UPS. Im suprised it has lasted thru so many hard crashes and still comes up fine. (ahem, linux rocks).
 
Not going to go look it up on a beautiful day, but doesn't Windows 10 normally do a hybrid hibernation/shutdown these days unless you do Restart or hold Shift while selecting Shutdown?
 
fencepost said:
Not going to go look it up on a beautiful day, but doesn't Windows 10 normally do a hybrid hibernation/shutdown these days unless you do Restart or hold Shift while selecting Shutdown?
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It does its little "Fast Startup" deal. I just turn all that *rap off. :)
 
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