Q. What is the difference between shutting down your computer, putting it into standby and hibernation?
A. When you shut your computer down it closes all open applications and processes and the system shuts off. It does not consume any power and will not come back on unless you physically turn it on.
Standby is an option that puts the computer to sleep. All the programs keep running but the hardware goes into a low-power mode by causing the hard drive stop spinning and the monitor stops displaying. The computer will stay that way as long as it has power and until you jiggle the mouse or start typing on the keyboard.
Hibernation is sort of a combination of sleep and shutdown. When you hibernate your computer it writes a file to the hard drive that is basically a record of what is happening on the computer at the time of hibernation and then shuts off.
Unlike when you shut down the computer, hibernation does not close all the open applications but it does cut all power. And unlike standby mode, hibernation does not require the computer to have power to remember what you were doing.
Hibernation is mostly for laptops. With hibernation you can leave all of your applications running, tell the computer to hibernate and then take the computer to another location and turn it on and it will be right where you left it when you entered hibernation mode.
You have everything up and running much faster than you would if you turned the computer on, waited for it to boot up and then loaded up the programs you wanted to use.
Keep in mind that hibernation is not a substitute for rebooting your computer. You should, as a matter of course, fully reboot your computer every once in awhile. A good reboot can work wonders when your computer is acting up or being a little cantankerous.