What Is Hibernate Mode?

Hibernate mode is like a cup of coffee but for your computer. When you hibernate your computer, it's like turning off the lights, putting your feet up, and taking a nap—but with no hassle! When you hibernate your computer, it goes into sleep mode. The difference between sleep and hibernation is that when you put your computer to sleep, it loses its current state (including all unsaved documents). When you hibernate your computer, however, it preserves its current condition and saves it on your hard drive so that when you turn it on again, everything will be exactly where it was before. This means that if you've still got a ton of work to do when you finish up in the evening (like us!), hibernating will save all those documents for when you return. And if something happens to your computer while you're away—say some power surge or lightning strike—everything will be as good as new when you get back into town. Hibernate mode is the best of both worlds. It's like sleep mode, but with a snooze button: It powers down your device completely, just as if you'd shut it off. But unlike sleep mode, when you wake up from hibernation, everything's where you left it—no waiting for programs to reload or reestablish connections. Because hibernation mode uses no power while the device is asleep, it can lead to issues with the software upon restarting. You might notice errors or applications that don't work as they should. That's why recommend using this mode only when necessary—like when you're away from home for an extended period and need to conserve battery life. When in doubt, use sleep mode instead! Sleep mode saves power by powering down some of your device's functions (like processing) while keeping other components active so that when you wake up from sleep mode, everything will instantly be ready for action.