Hibernate or Standby ?

[Kas]

Again I have attempted to use the "search" to prevent duplication, but failed.

I use Hibernate all the time. It consumes so little power that the Internet local connection becomes unplugged, which is fine for incoming intrusions, they cannot get in. Also, I can leave any process, panels or incomplete work on screen, Hibernate and hours later hit the power button and there they are again just as left.
The computer can be left for very long periods on Hibernate with almost no power consumption.

I believe Vista has a similar facility called "sleep", but I have Windows XP Home with SP3 and IE7.

May I ask for your opinions on the most efficient and user-friendly way of leaving your computer for a while ; Shut down, Hibernate or Stand-by.

** The only thing I have been plagued with is that if I leave IE, OE and say another process on Hibernate, then I get a warning on resumption that the Virtual Memory is too low. When this occurs, all my saved processes have to be sacrificed in order to recover the VM situation by re-booting. A waste of time in such cases and very annoying.
KAS

[Raza0007]

Since no one has responded so I will venture some info.

I use Vista by the way and normally put my laptop to "sleep". In Vista they call the old "standby" as "sleep", both are same.

Hibernation: Saves all your open files/programs to hard disk and turns your computer off. Does not use power, as info is permanently recorded on your hard disk. This is the most efficient of the two. It is user friendly but just takes a little more time then the "sleep/standby", both going into hibernation and coming out of hibernation. Needs space on hard disk. Ideal if you have a desktop.

Sleep/Standby: Saves all your open files/programs to memory and turns your computer in a low power state. Uses slight amount of power as info has to be kept refreshed in memory/RAM. If power is cut you lose your session and computer shuts down. From efficiency point of view, it comes after hibernation. It is the most user friendly as the process of going to sleep and coming out of sleep is almost instantaneous. Needs adequate memory installed to work. Ideal if you have a laptop.

I have used hibernation occasionally, but prefer sleep. I did not experience any problems using hibernation. The only issue I have with sleep is that I was concerned about the RAM/memory fatigue (if there is such a thing), as during sleep your RAM remains powered so it remains powered 24/7. In my case for example, I have not shut-down my laptop since 24th September 2008. So my RAM effectively has remained powered 24/7 since that time. I did some search on this issue but could not find any articles/complaints etc so I assume sleep does not harm your RAM in anyway.

Well, those were my opinions about sleep and hibernation.