What's difference between sleep and hibernate?

Question

I have a laptop (Toshiba) that I leave on more often than not...I use it several times a day but never shut it off. Thanks.

Answer 1

sleep doesn't completely turn off your computer and keeps it in a low state of power but hibernate saves your last screen to the hard drive til the next time you log on while in hibernate your computer is completely turned of as if you hit shut down !  

Answer 2

Hibernate also keeps Windows 'loaded' so you don't have to go through all the system startup, giving faster times from turn on to actual 'ready to use' condition.

Answer 3

sleep is a low-power state, meaning that your computer is technically on but most of it's components are off (such as the hard drive)

hibernate on the other hand takes everything that is stored in your RAM memory and puts it onto the hard drive, then turns it off completely. The next time you turn on the computer, it will access that file that it stored on your hard drive and it will be like you never turned it off (it's a bit faster than shutting it down completely because it doesn't have to load the startup items)  

Answer 4

Hibernate shuts it of,f but keeps it in the last state of use, so if u have itunes open and firefox when u turn it on you will have those applications opened already, without having to log in again.

sleep just keeps it on and it the last state used, it still uses power.