windows 7 sleep/hibernate issues with ssd

Question

I have a 2 pc with ssd as system disks both with windows7.

First pc has vertex ssd drive and it has issues with hiber-sleep mode: windows started from scratch after hibernate sleep and don't pickup the hibernate state (as after shutdown).

If I select hibernate from win menu - the pc powers off and in a seconds turn on again with only black screen and underscoring cursor in the left upper corner. Then if I push power button on the box it will switch off completely and then if power button again - it starts normally from hibernate state.

So the situation is different only in hibernate-sleep mode: I leave the comp and go away, it then goes to normal sleep in 30 mins and lately (when windows decides itself) to hibernation and here I see where the problem is: after "hibernate sleep" - it fails to restore the state.

I've read that hibernate mode is bad for ssd drive, but I have different situation with my second pc with Intel ssd drive: it has no issues with hiber sleep window 7 mode and started after as expected with all hiber state restored!

So 3 questions:

1. why hibernation fails in first comp? May there be some hardware disk protection utilites?
2. why intel ssd is ok, are intel disks better optimized for this mode?
3. and is really hibernation still very bad for modern ssd and you'll crash any ssd if e.g. using hibernation every day for a couple of years?

Configuration:

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System Information
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   Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.120503-2030)
           Language: Russian (Regional Setting: Russian)
System Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
       System Model: HP Compaq 8200 Elite CMT PC
               BIOS: Default System BIOS
          Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.1GHz
             Memory: 8192MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 8080MB RAM
          Page File: 5736MB used, 10421MB available
        Windows Dir: C:\Windows
    DirectX Version: DirectX 11

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Disk & DVD/CD-ROM Drives
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      Drive: C:
 Free Space: 47.5 GB
Total Space: 85.6 GB
File System: NTFS
      Model: OCZ-VERTEX2

      Drive: E:
 Free Space: 430.5 GB
Total Space: 476.9 GB
File System: NTFS
      Model: ST3500413AS

Answer 1

I am using hibernate on an SSD now for more than two years. As Windows only writes the used RAM to disk the total number of written data caused by hibernation is not as high as most people expect.

You can calculate the write usage yourself. A typical lifetime guaranteed by e.g. Intel is 35 Terabytes Written (TBW). Assuming a usage of five years that would allow you to write up to 20GB to the disk daily.

I don't know what you are doing with that PC. But, even if you would do a full hibernate of 16GB RAM this would leave you 4GB per day — a value that most users will not reach.

Update: If you really don't want to use the SSD for the hibernate you can move it to a special hibernate partition: Creating a hibernation partition on Windows 7 This partition can be created on a regular HDD. The funny thing is that Microsoft developed this function just for the opposite direction (operating system on HDD, hibernate on SSD).

Answer 2

Although everything worked fine for about six months, the computer now fails to hibernate. It's only successful about a third of the time.

There are two different scenarios of failures which occurs randomly:

1. When the hibernation screen goes off, the hard drive is working for a few seconds. After that the hard drive stops working but the PC is still powered on. After powering down by pressing the power button for three seconds and powering on again, Windows starts like a normal clean start, as if it was simply shut down instead of being hibernated.
2. When the hibernation screen goes off, the hard drive works for a few seconds and finally goes STANDBY instead of hibernate.

Things done to resolve the problem:

1. Disable/enable hibernation using powercfg -h tool
2. Change hibernation file size to 100% of amount of RAM (powercfg -h size 100)
3. Run deep CHKDSK during system boot
4. Run deep anti-virus scan using Avast 4.8 (in boot mode)
5. Check system logs. All (maybe) usable information I found was - Application and Services Log -> Microsoft -> Windows -> Kernel-Power -> Thermal -> Working of processor 0 (or 1) was reduced by process different than kernel power manager (ID:91).
6. Check running processes to find any strange or suspicious. Didn't find anything suspicious

Answer 3

Windows 7 laptop (work) would not hibernate - only sleep. Had been working but suddenly stopped.

Changing options did not fix, neither did turning off\re-enabling hibernate. In the end this appears due to a corrupted BCD. Installed EASYBCD but it couldn't open the BCD. Said it was corrupted. Booted off a Windows 64 bit repair disk (can be created from Windows).

Windows boot repaired before initial repair screen (without any further input) - "problems with boot file detected - would you like fix these and reboot?" - Otherwise I would have run the startup repair option, but this was not necessary.

Rebooted into Windows. Now can read BCD file using EasyBCD. Hibernate works.