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It seems to me that in Windows 8 classic, hibernate is slower than the fast shutdown.
Is there any meaningful reason to hibernate a Windows 8 machine (as opposed to fast shutdown or sleep)?
Klas Mellbourn
Posted 2012-11-07T07:48:56.410
Reputation: 1 601
11
Though hibernate is slower than the fast shutdown, sometimes you may want to preserve the opened programs and other stuff. You could do it by sleep, but that will consume battery, so it's better to hibernate if you want to save battery.
Hibernate option is by default disabled in Windows 8. Now I think this was due to fast shutdown.
vishesh
Posted 2012-11-07T07:48:56.410
Reputation: 972
5If you're on laptop, you might want to switch battery or if your battery is at a dangerously low level, you don't want to sleep since sleeping requires continuous power to the RAM. Hibernate is usually slower than fresh shotdown and startup, but restarting all programs and losing undo/redo states slows down your workflow even worse, so it's an overall win. – Lie Ryan – 2012-11-07T11:45:55.653
I am really upset with Windows 8. I enabled the Hibernate option in Power Options, and every day I resume notebook from Hibernation, the battery has been consumed (almost 5%). This is really annoying. In Windows 7 this problem did not happen. – Junior M – 2012-11-28T14:10:43.677
Well obviously you're not hibernating then - check if your computer is still on. Hibernation powers off your computer - there is no battery consumption, ever. Your computer must still be on. – WindowsEscapist – 2013-01-03T15:14:31.537
@WindowsEscapist: I can't speak for the Windows 8 part, but some laptops (such as /cough/ VAIOs) indeed do have very funny behavior regarding when battery gets used up. My current one (when it had its original battery) used up a more-than-expected amount of battery when it's hibernated (or even shut down!) for a few hours. Somehow, it seemed to think "hey, last time I was turned on, I was unplugged... therefore I will lose charge!" even when it was currently plugged in. – user541686 – 2013-01-15T03:13:18.287
I suspect that this battery loss in just due to battery voltage leveling off or inconsistencies in how Windows calculates battery percentages. It might just be me being rigid, but I am a firm believer that when a computer hibernates, it is off, and when a computer is off, it consumes no current. I do agree though, VAIOs behave oddly in other aspects so it's conceivable that it might drain current to something. – WindowsEscapist – 2013-01-15T03:33:03.653
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Hibernation preserves system state - which can be useful if you're in the middle of something. While impressively fast, the fast shutdown/bootup method does not.
Journeyman Geek
Posted 2012-11-07T07:48:56.410
Reputation: 119 122
2and it doesn't use battery compared to sleep which also preserves system state. – Matsemann – 2012-11-07T08:30:04.543
1And I've seen wake-up after Sleep fail way more often than after Hibernate. – Joey – 2012-11-07T09:01:16.690
3
I guess it depends on your configuration but for me:
Peter
Posted 2012-11-07T07:48:56.410
Reputation: 1 208
Here, hibernate startup often takes longer than a startup after a shut down. Guess the hibernate with its preserving of programs may have too much to read from the disk. – Matsemann – 2012-11-07T08:29:30.893
Hm, I might have to check that again then, but I'm guessing it might also depend on what you have opened. – Peter – 2012-11-07T08:46:46.587
Yeah, I think so. When I hibernate it's because I have a lot open that I don't want to close. :p – Matsemann – 2012-11-07T09:01:29.293
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Note that in Windows 8, fast shutdown actually is hibernation: The user session is shut down, and the OS is hibernated. See http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/08/delivering-fast-boot-times-in-windows-8.aspx . That's why fast shutdown will probably always be faster on Win8 than hibernation.
– sleske – 2012-11-07T12:50:43.180To clarify: I know that hibernate saves the state, but I can sleep my computer to get that feature. – Klas Mellbourn – 2012-11-07T16:09:12.190