Does it matter, or is it nothing to worry about?
We crunched the numbers, so you don’t have to.
What Is Hibernation?
First, let’s talk about what hibernation is exactly.
When you’re done using your gear, you have a few options.
you’re free to just leave it running.
The exact opposite is completely powering it down for the day by shutting it down.
That makes the other options,sleep or hibernation, much more appealing than fully shutting down your PC.
Sleep mode parks the computer state (open apps, documents, etc.)
in the RAM and puts the computer in low power mode.
Why Do People Care About Hibernation on SSDs (But Not HDDs)?
Why are people curious about hibernation mode and SSD wear and tear but not with HDDs?
The crux of the “Is hibernation bad for SSDs?”
issue is the RAM-dump-to-disk write activity every time you put your machine in hibernation mode.
But disk writes to an SSD create a different kind of wear.
The TBW rating is the manufacturer’s way of quantifying the durability of the drive.
How Much Wear and Tear Does Hibernating Put On an SSD?
But how much extra does hibernation contribute?
But we can give you some general estimates and tips for calculating it yourself.
Let’s use my daily driver Windows desktop PC as an example case.
On an average workday, mine fluctuates between 50-60%, as seen in the Task Manager screenshot below.
You’ll likely find a similar figure in your own Task Manager.
It’ll tell you how much RAM you have and how much RAM is currently utilized.
The RAM utilization fluctuated a small amount between screenshots, but you get the idea.
The manual calculation and memory performance check both show my system is using around half the available RAM.
once you nail the value, in my case about 18GB, you have one last step.
you’re gonna wanna multiply the value by 0.75.
Want to double-check that under real-world conditions?
Our file is 13.39GB which lines up nicely with our estimated 13.5GB value.
The quick answer: it doesn’t matter.
But if you want the long answer, let’s crunch some numbers.
Again, I’ll use my daily driver machine to showcase things.
I’m a great candidate for this showcase because I hibernate my PC daily like clockwork.
The Power On Count for the drive is 565.
Power On Hours is 5,562.
That makes sense to me.
The Total Host Writes for the drive is 13,969GB (or 13.97TB).
Clearly, hibernation is terrible for your SSD!"
If I had never used the hibernation function, it would be 1.1% of its TBW rating.
Even 10 years of use will hardly put a dent in the TBW.
You’ll upgrade and replace your entire computer long before you even come close to exceeding the TBW rating.
