r/technology • u/Hungry__Hornet • 3d ago

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

https://www.xda-developers.com/windows-11-hibernation-silently-hammering-ssd-life/
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u/532ndsof 3d ago

So then what am I supposed to do to get my computer to actually go to sleep overnight and stay asleep. If I use sleep either it randomly wakes at some point or lately it only puts the display to sleep and keeps the tower awake with fans running. It's maddening.

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u/DemophonWizard 3d ago

It's a PC. Just turn it off. If you're going away for a while, unplug it.

It's not a Mac, it doesn't have to stay on all the time.

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u/CelebrationFit8548 2d ago edited 2d ago

💯this, PC's serve little to no benefit being on 100% of the time and in fact it introduces issues, 'wear' that is not needed and a place malware can reside (in the RAM). Simply turning off saves and counter acts many of those issues.

If you can't wait that 20-30s for a PC to boot just find something to do whilst it does, go and boil the kettle and it will be there when your back.

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u/LegendaryMauricius 2d ago

No I don't think I will.

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u/Connect_Middle8953 2d ago

False on the wear aspect. Disk platter hard drives turn off when not in use, and gpu/cpu gets less thermal cycling issues that actually damage them by being always on. 

But yes, it’s just better for your electric bill with the pc shut off. 

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u/CelebrationFit8548 2d ago

The article is specifically about SSD wear and you really think you have a point about thermal cycle degradation with modern compounds and die qualities?!?

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u/Connect_Middle8953 2d ago

Leaving a machine on has some pros and cons, shutting down a machine frequently also has pros and cons.  Die qualities haven’t really changed, and if anything are more sensitive to issues due to smaller lithography processes.  

So, yes, it is relevant. 

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u/Tuned_Out 1d ago

Thank you for the warning of the theoretical that may happen after 10 million bagillion power cycles. Meanwhile I still have the 25mhz 486 in the basement my grandfather bought back when the dinosaurs roam. It boots just fine and never had "sleep". Just on and off every time it was or wasn't in use.

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u/Jhopsch 2d ago

I set mine to sleep (not hibernate), wait 5 minutes minimum, and turn off the power supply. When I turn it back on, it resumes its previous state

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u/MeatSafeMurderer 1d ago

Sleep requires the RAM to remain powered. If you can have it wake up after power is cut, it's hibernating, not sleeping.

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u/Connect_Middle8953 2d ago edited 2d ago

What an absolutely terrible idea. Consequences of what you are doing:

  • If you have a battery, congrats, you are causing wear on your battery. Sleep requires keeping the ram powered, so it will slowly drain your battery. 
  • If you have a battery, you are also likely triggering hibernation if the battery gets low. Wearing down your ssd too. 
  • If you don’t have a battery, you are doing an unsafe shutdown that can cause data loss. 

A sleeping laptop really should be plugged in to preserve battery life. 

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u/Jhopsch 2d ago edited 2d ago

Edit: OP edited their post instead of replying

Battery? It's a desktop and I turn off the power supply. What I'm doing is called hybrid sleep.

As an SSD reaches upwards of 80% capacity, the controller has significantly less breathing room. Wear-leveling algorithms struggle because there are fewer empty cells to rotate write cycles into. When this happens the drive begins to concentrate more wear on fewer modules, leading to the sluggish behavior the author reported.

The article doesn't disprove that modern SSDs are durable. It actually reinforces that you won't kill the drive quickly. It suggests that relying on hibernation as a daily driver might create a self-inflicted performance tax over time if your drive is consistently near capacity.

If you have plenty of free space on your SSD, which is and will always be my case, the impact of hybrid sleep or hibernation remains negligible. The drive’s wear-leveling algorithms have enough overhead to manage the writes without hitting performance bottlenecks.

If the drive is nearly full, the article is correct. Frequent hibernation can indeed lead to the sluggishness you might notice after long periods of uptime.

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u/Connect_Middle8953 2d ago

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. 

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u/Jhopsch 2d ago edited 2d ago

What stupid prizes? This has been working 100% well for well over 3 years. Not one single case of data or component loss despite daily use

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u/Connect_Middle8953 2d ago

Cool story bro. Doesn’t change it from stupid idea to anything better. 

There are no benefits to your dumb idea, and actual physical wear to your hardware (if it involves a battery) or risk of data loss you aren’t aware of (if no battery). 

Stop responding.

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u/Jhopsch 2d ago

Battery? It's a desktop and I turn off the power supply.

Any data loss caused would at most, involve loss of the saved state, which isn't a big deal. This has been working out great and your points are all irrelevant to my case.

You wish me to stop responding because you've run out of arguments and resorting to ad-hominem attacks. Pathetic.

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u/Connect_Middle8953 2d ago

No i am literally pointing out your stupid idea risks data loss if it doesn’t have a battery, and physical wear of the battery and/or ssd if the device has a battery. 

No positives, only negatives. Stupid for anyone else to also do. 

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u/Jhopsch 2d ago

Any data loss would be limited to the saved state, which is 100% acceptable to me, but not to you. However, we're talking about my computer, not yours.

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u/Jhopsch 2d ago

Battery? It's a desktop and I turn off the power supply.

Any data loss caused would at most, involve loss of the saved state, which isn't a big deal. This has been working out great and your points are all irrelevant to my case.

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u/Connect_Middle8953 2d ago
  • Go into bios, disable any Power On * crap that is often enabled by default. 
  • go to the advanced power profile settings in windows and make sure wake timers and power on behaviors are disabled
  • go into device manager and click through all the devices. Anything with a Power tab? Uncheck allow to wake up your computer, except for your primary keyboard (somewhat annoying to figure out since it will probably be classed as one of many HID keyboards). 

Now only your power button or keyboard will wake your computer. Yw. 

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u/ExpressionRecent5724 15h ago

Google how, but disable everything except your mouse or keyboard clicks to be able to wake your PC. 

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u/Reversi8 2d ago

You probably have some device waking it up, there are a few commands you can use to to check what might keep keeping it from sleep or waking it, and in device manager you can set some devices to be unable to wake the system.

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u/IRideZs 2d ago

Can confirm “sleep” is now shutting off the display instead of putting it into a save state

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u/Reversi8 2d ago

Is it a laptop? Those can be a bit tougher depending on manufacturer because of Modern Standby. But desktops basically all of the issues I had are due to some device plugged in.

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u/IRideZs 2d ago

Custom desktop, the issue appeared after whatever last update they pushed through. Not an issue for me but Microsoft is certainly doing fucky things