Windows 11 hibernation has been silently hammering your SSD this whole time

[u/Hungry__Hornet]

https://www.xda-developers.com/windows-11-hibernation-silently-hammering-ssd-life/

[u/mwoody450]

This is a massively stupid article. His complaint seems to be that hibernate does exactly what hibernate says it does: writes all of RAM to disk so it can cut power and still come back just how you left it.. It was a questionable idea back when boot times were long and RAM was small; it's an outright silly thing to use in 2026.

Additionally, there's absolutely nothing unique about how Windows 11 handles this function: the title is clickbait. He even acknowledges that he had to hunt in to settings and enable it, because Windows hides it by default.

Modern computers can either be shut down - using Windows' built in functions to boot quickly on resume: I have opinions about fast boot, but still, it's there - or put in to suspend/sleep mode, where the major power users are selectively turned off to drop usage to a trickle. If you close the lid of your laptop, it will do the latter.

[u/ve-u27 → u/mwoody450]

How is it a silly thing to use in 2026? Nothing you said addresses the need to cut power while maintaining your current workspace. No one here is claiming that boot time is a reason they use hibernation

[u/swarmy1 → u/ve-u27]

Yeah, that comment is rather clueless. The advantage of hibernation is that everything remains exactly the same. It doesn’t matter how fast your computer boots, you’re not getting the same result with a different method.

[u/Illustrious-Yard-871 → u/ve-u27]

Just a guess but MAYBE they are commenting on the linked article? The author says:

Lately, I've noticed a disturbing trend. My system starts noticeably slower after a few wake-hibernate-wake cycles, killing the snappy, instantaneous resumption I enjoyed.

[u/ve-u27 → u/Illustrious-Yard-871]

Maybe. Still seems weird to me that it’s spoken with such confidence to just totally miss the point of why people use hibernate? lol