Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

.mark.

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 28, 2007
266
1
Jersey, C.I.
Hi, I got my first mac yesterday and was wondering if there is a feature similar to hibernating in windows in mac os x? I'm sure there will be - I just haven't stumbled across it!
 
Do you mean Apple menu > Sleep? Or burying it in the ground to retrieve next spring? :D
 
Do you mean Apple menu > Sleep? Or burying it in the ground to retrieve next spring? :D

sleep is not the equivelent to hibernate though as when "sleeping" the mac will still use power (although only a small amount to power the ram) whereas hibernating a windows machine saves the ram to disk and then powers down completely, allowing the machine to be turned back on and the user's session is preserved...
 
sleep is not the equivelent to hibernate though as when "sleeping" the mac will still use power (although only a small amount to power the ram) whereas hibernating a windows machine saves the ram to disk and then powers down completely, allowing the machine to be turned back on and the user's session is preserved...

Sleep is the equivalent of Windows' hibernate function. It may not work in exactly the same way, but it offers equivalent functionality.

Can I ask exactly what you're trying to achieve? OS X's Sleep function will preserve your session, so the only difference is that the Mac still draws power. Is this a problem?
 
Sleep is the equivalent of Windows' hibernate function. It may not work in exactly the same way, but it offers equivalent functionality.

Can I ask exactly what you're trying to achieve? OS X's Sleep function will preserve your session, so the only difference is that the Mac still draws power. Is this a problem?

No, DeepSleep is the equivalent of Windowss hibernate.

Sleep is the equivalent of Windows' standby, or as it's now funnily enough called in Vista, Sleep.

DeepSleep is generally only achieved when you drain a notebook's battery right down to about 2% - I've only ever seen it once.
 
This widget will give you the functionality you're looking for.

I tried it once and then didn't see the point when sleep is much more effective for me.
 
Safe Sleep

You can put certain Macs into 'Safe Sleep' which is otherwise known as hibernating - but its only supported on SOME portables. Have a quick read, its detailed within the last paragraph:

Safe Sleep

F
 
DeepSleep is (at least on macbooks) also activated, when a mac goes to sleep. (Even though it is not only in DeepSleep!) On Macbook(Pro)s you can remove the battery after going to sleep, and when the power is back, it loads the memory contents back from you harddrive... But I think you can't activate it seperatly...
 
No, DeepSleep is the equivalent of Windowss hibernate.

Sleep is the equivalent of Windows' standby, or as it's now funnily enough called in Vista, Sleep.

DeepSleep is generally only achieved when you drain a notebook's battery right down to about 2% - I've only ever seen it once.

My point being that Apple offer Sleep as an equivalent function to both Standby and Hibernate - they don't offer a user option that's directly comparable to Hibernate.

I guess the OP could try this 'Deep Sleep' widget:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/deepsleep.html
 
It is very easy to set the hibernate mode really all you do is in a terminal:

Normal
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3

Instant
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 1


PS. Does not work on secure ram, also powerbook/ibook users must enter lots more, but theres programs to automate all this
 
Having proper hibernate support is great -- particularly for those that wish to switch quickly between OS X and Windows, for example, because the sleep mode wouldn't allow that.

This thread has been dormant for some time -- does anyone know if the DeepSleep widget works on the latest iMacs? Perhaps more importantly: does anyone know what happens when one tries the widget on a machine that's not supported? I should hope the worst is that the machine has to be rebooted again or similar.
 
This thread has been dormant for some time -- does anyone know if the DeepSleep widget works on the latest iMacs? Perhaps more importantly: does anyone know what happens when one tries the widget on a machine that's not supported? I should hope the worst is that the machine has to be rebooted again or similar.

"Safe sleep" works the same way on all Intel machines.
 
Thanks for the quick reply. I tried the hibernate AppleScript app from http://blog.kaputtendorf.de/2007/08/17/hibernation-tool-for-mac-os/ as opposed to the DeepSleep widget (http://deepsleep.free.fr/), though for anyone interested I'd strongly recommend reading the docs for DeepSleep.

Unfortunately when I turned the machine back on I was not able to hold down the option key and get the list of OSes to choose from -- I was hoping I could use this as a more convenient way to switch to Windows (and, importantly, back).

Perhaps by editing the hibernate script it might be possible to instruct the machine to come back up in Windows when the power comes on (a la the "Startup Disk" settings panel) but this is a bit out of the scope of my AppleScript (or Mac) knowledge. I wonder if anyone else knows how or has managed to do this in the past...

It's certainly good to know the machine is totally off, though. It only takes a few seconds to come back so I'm very happy with this anyway.
 
Not sure if this can help you, but here is pref panel that let you select the sleep mode easily.
It also adds a smart function that changes the sleep mode from "sleep only" (faster sleep, like used by older macs) to "safe sleep" (which is slower but safer) depending on the remaining charge of the battery.

http://www.jinx.de/SmartSleep.html
 
Thanks for the information, but I was really hoping for a method to hibernate Mac OS X and then allow me to chose on start-up which OS to run. I do use and find valuable the ability to hibernate the machine but being able to switch between Mac OS X and Windows without having to log out and lose my session would have rocked.
 
Hi

It seems this discussion is missing an important issue:
Hibernation allows you to put your laptop in a bag and transport it, I would really dislike to put a laptop in sleep mode in a bag, since the cpu and memory would still be powered on.

It seems stupid that I need third party applications to enable hibarnation for a mac. As if Apple has only considered people moving the Macbook Pros around the office...

(I recently purchased a Macbook Pro and is very content with it, but really don't understand the decision to disable hibernation).

Regards,
Lasse
 
CPU and disk are turned off in sleep. Only memory uses a very small amount of energy to keep your data.
Hibernating takes a lot of time with 2Gb+ of ram and its only useful if you dont use your computer for a few days and even then you can just shut down.
If your computer is in sleep mode and you leave it for few days like this, then it goes to safe sleep (hibernate) before it drains your battery.
 
According to Apple, the CPU goes into low power mode.
But the point is, I don't want any power on a laptop thats shoved down a bag and put into the hot trunk of my car. Thats why hibernation is great, I can hibernate it, transport it and power it up at home and resume work directly. I can't do this with just sleep...
Sleep is great for preserving power while standing on my desk, but not for allowing me to use my laptop as a portable computer.
 
Sleep is just for that!
Why dont just shut down then its way faster then hibernate and resume. I can reboot twice before you hibernate with 2Gb+ of ram.
In sleep there is no heat produced or something :) I always just close the lid and carry it in my bag... no problems ever.
 
Well, i don't use hibernation for speed, but since it allows me to stop working without saving a list of open programs and webpages (i work quite unstructured), and resume later.
But if is considered "safe" to transport a sleeping Macbook, this option is of course much better.

Regards,
Lasse
 
Not only it is considered safe but it is built for properly sleep and with this in mind for carrying arrond.
This is not windows where sleep rarely works :)
 
Not only it is considered safe but it is built for properly sleep and with this in mind for carrying arrond.
This is not windows where sleep rarely works :)

Linux is where sleep rarely works :)

I've been using WinXP for years and I always put it into hibernate mode instead of shutting down - this is the way I work.

Now I'm on my 2nd day with a MacBook Pro and I really don't understand why there is no hibernate mode?! I don't want to put my CPU in low energy mode, I want it in no-energy mode.

The two things that I'll probably *never* get used to in a Mac are:
1. Lack of keyboard shortcut for context menu (Shift-F10 in WinXP)
2. Missing hibernate feature
 
Linux is where sleep rarely works :)

I've been using WinXP for years and I always put it into hibernate mode instead of shutting down - this is the way I work.

Now I'm on my 2nd day with a MacBook Pro and I really don't understand why there is no hibernate mode?! I don't want to put my CPU in low energy mode, I want it in no-energy mode.

The two things that I'll probably *never* get used to in a Mac are:
1. Lack of keyboard shortcut for context menu (Shift-F10 in WinXP)
2. Missing hibernate feature

Check the posts above. There are many utilities that let you decide which mode to use for sleep, like Smartsleep or Deep Sleeep.
 
Linux is where sleep rarely works :)

That used to be true c. 2004 or so... but nowadays ACPI support for sleep is pretty damn good. I've found modern Linux kernels to support sleep every bit as well as Windows; some machines can sleep under Windows but not Linux, others the reverse.

(And yes, I get you were joking. :D)
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.