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difference between sleep and hibernate

Difference between Sleep and Hibernate

Are you finding the difference between sleep and hibernate? Yes, these terms are really confusing and used interchangeably but they mean really different and we will help you to understand the same.

Sleep and Hibernate both are power saving mode used in computers or laptops. Sleep mode is a power saver mode in this all the actions is stopped and all the applications are put in memory while the computer goes into a low-power state. On the other hand, hibernate instead of saving your open documents and running applications to your RAM, it saves them to your hard disk and computers gets turned off.

Let’s go deep into both the topics for better understanding.

Sleep

Sleep is a power saving mode in the computer in which the computer goes in low power state. Sleep mode stops all the actions and all the applications are saved in RAM. The computer technically stays on, but only uses a bit of power. You can quickly resume normal, full-power operation within a few seconds. Sleep mode is basically the same thing as “Standby” mode.

Sleep is a power-saving state that allows a computer to quickly resume full-power operation when you want to start working again. All the other components do not receive any power thus saving battery to a lot of extents.

Hibernate

Hibernate mode is very similar to sleep, but instead of saving your open documents and running applications to your RAM, it saves them to your hard disk. This allows your computer to turn off entirely, which means once your computer is in Hibernate mode, it uses zero power. Once the computer is powered back on, it will resume everything where you left off. In hibernate, the computer is not in low power mode but gets turned off.

It just takes a bit longer to resume than sleep mode does. Hibernate function can be used when there is no use of a computer or laptop for an extended period of time, and you don’t want to close your documents.

Now moving on to the differences between sleep and hibernate will clear all your doubts easily.

Power usage

Low power is consumed in sleep mode and no power is consumed in hibernate mode.

Processing Functions

All the open documents and running applications are saved to your RAM while using sleep, whereas hibernates saves them to your hard disk.

When to use

Sleep is used when a system is idle for a shorter time while hibernate is used when a system is idle for a longer duration.

Synonyms

Sleep is also known as Standby, Suspended to RAM, S3 in ACPI whereas other names for hibernate are Suspended to disk, Safe Seep, and S4.