Hibernate vs Sleep

Sleep is commonly known as Standby in Windows system. In Sleep mode, the power supply to non-essential and non-critical component is withheld, and most system operation is shutdown and stopped. In Sleep mode, the power load reduce considerably, saving a lot of energy. However, the power must not be cut off, and must be continue to supply to the computer. Once out of power, the system will have to start again just like a newly boot computer just started from power off state.

On the other hand, Hibernate will save the data in physical memory to hard disk drive (HDD), and then power off the computer. 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 for maximum saving of power. In Hibernation dormancy, no electricity is consumed by system. Beside, restore from Hibernate is generally faster than computer reboot, and is totally different from fresh start, as users can return to the exact state of last hibernation with all programs running and documents opened intact, instead of empty desktop.