Power Management

Sleep vs Hibernate: What Happens to Your Computer

Closing a laptop lid can make the screen go dark almost instantly, yet opening it later may bring back the same applications and documents. Hibernate can appear similar, but the computer can remain without external power for much longer without losing that saved working state. The difference comes down to where the computer keeps the information it needs to resume. Sleep generally keeps the current working state in memory while most other activity is reduced or stopped. Hibernate saves that state to persistent storage so the computer can power down more completely.