Hibernate and Sleep are two power modes that Windows can enter in an attempt to conserve energy when you're not using your computer. Sleep mode is meant to be used for short periods of time when you'll be away from your computer, but you want it to respond quickly when you return. Open documents and applications are stored to memory, and the system enters a "pause" state. Since reading from memory is faster than reading from disk, restoring your system from sleep mode is a fairly quick operation.
Hibernate mode, on the other hand, is intended for when you're going to be gone for a longer period of time. Open documents and applications are stored to disk in a file named C:\hiberfile.sys, and the computer actually shuts down, thus making its energy requirements zero. When you return, you restart your computer and your documents and applications are read from the disk file and restored just as they were before the system entered Hibernate mode.
If you know you'll be away from your system for an extended time (a couple of days or more), then you should tell Windows to Hibernate rather than simply putting it to Sleep. This will help conserve energy, which can be very important if your system happens to be a laptop. If you put the system in Sleep mode, it is possible that it will still drain power and, over time, run out of juice. However, when your available power drains to a dangerously low point, Windows automatically enters Hibernate mode and then shuts down so that your work is not lost.
This tip (12621) applies to Windows 7 and 8.
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2015-10-19 15:56:37
Henry Noble
Hibernate appears to function in Win10 as it does in Win8/8.1 and in Win7.
When Hibernate is enabled, the choice will appear in the Shutdown menu.
The commands to enable and disable Hibernate are the same as for prior versions, i.e. "powercfg /h on" and "powercfg /h off".
Side note: You will not see hiberfil.sys unless you have enabled viewing of protected operating system files in File Explorer a/k/a Windows Explorer.
2015-10-19 14:56:44
Barry
Yes, Windows 8.1 has hibernate and sleep states.
2015-10-19 14:50:28
Jas R
Does this apply to Win 8.1?
2015-10-19 12:10:03
Ted
I liked that feature in Windows 7, however now that I have Windows 10 I don't have that feature and I don't want to be always turning my computer off.
Is Windows 10 going to be coming out with the "hibernate" feature?
2015-10-19 09:43:40
Henry Noble
Hibernation is a solution in search of a problem. It made modest sense with slow processors and slow disks, but modern hardware has relegated hibernation to a Wiki article.
Use sleep to pause for a few minutes. For any extended pause, turn off the laptop.
Hibernation requires a file on disk roughly equal to the size of the computer's memory. With a small SSD, that may be a significant penalty.
The only way to get rid of the hiberfil.sys file is to open a command prompt window as Administrator, then enter the command "powercfg.exe /hibernate off" or "powercfg.exe /h off". Disabling hibernation in the power configuration does not remove the big file.
2015-10-19 09:31:25
Travis
I always wondered. So are the contents of hiberfile.sys removed after the computer resumes operations? What happens to that file and its contents once the computer comes out of hibernation?
2015-10-19 09:18:39
ROBERT HENSHAW
very straight forward and concise comment to understand.
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