What's best for my computer: Hibernate, sleep, or shut down?

Q: Does putting my computer to sleep help extend the battery life? What else can I do to save energy and make my new computer last?
A: We’ve all heard stories about what's best for a computer’s battery. That’s why I was excited to make friends with Fred Peters, president of Huntington Beach IT Services.
In addition to teaching computing courses in Orange County, Calif., Peters happily makes house calls to revive frazzled computers and the people who rely on them.

Here are his expert tips on how to keep your new laptop running smoothly.
Sleep mode vs. shutting down
Peters notes that your work process will determine whether it’s more efficient to use “Sleep” mode or simply shut down the computer. “It is never fun to have to consistently wait any amount of time if the shut downs are too frequent,” he says. "‘Sleep’ requires more power, but it boots up faster, while ‘Hibernate’ uses less power, but takes longer to come online.” That same logic applies to shutting off your computer completely.
“Your computer will become obsolete before you wear out your computer by turning it on and off a lot,” he adds. “It also doesn't take more energy to start a computer than to keep it running.”
Sleep mode requires a constant, though reduced use of power (0-6 watts). Peters also notes that colorful screensavers do nothing to conserve energy. Accessing your computer remotely with the Wake on LAN feature also can drain the power.
To get the most for your money, Peters advises adjusting power settings so that it automatically goes into Sleep/Standby mode after about 15 minutes of inactivity, and then shut it down at the end of your day.
Bionic battery life
To get the most out of your computer battery, Peters says to you have to give it a workout. Don’t keep your machine plugged in to an outlet. Instead, discharge the battery daily.
Size does matter
By purchasing a laptop, Peters says that you are ahead in the energy-saving game. Laptops use about 15-60 watts, while desktops use 65-250 watts — plus another 15-80 watts for a monitor.
He also adds that you can further conserve energy by using an LCD monitor and ditching the high-end video card unless it’s absolutely necessary. Also, turn off printers and other peripherals when they are not in use.
To kill “vampire power,” TreeHugger.com suggests purchasing a power strip. With all peripherals connected to one source, it’s easy to simply flip the switch on power hogs any time.

Establish a backup process
In addition to Peters’ great advice about conserving energy, I discovered the hard way that it also pays to save backup versions of your work. Invest in an external hard drive to hold your digital music library, special photos, and other key documents. Frequent backups ensure that your data doesn’t die with your laptop.
While you are in the process of backing things up, create an emergency file (on good old-fashioned paper) that contains your computer’s serial number along with other key data such as your credit card numbers and phone numbers to reach each company, along with contact info to your insurance company. Access to that information is vital, particularly in the event of an accident, fire, computer theft, or other catastrophe.
Peters warns that those key pieces of information are not safe on your computer. If you are like me and absolutely need a digital holding space for those nuggets of information, he suggests sites like Last Pass as your online vault.
Happy computing! Morieka
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Now Let me append hereunder certain contrary reports on discharging the laptop battery regularly as well as other stuffs upon Notebook batteries, gathered from the net : -

Notebook batteries are a common topic of discussion, and the vast majority of questions about them deal with prolonging their lives. There is a lot of information about Lithium Ion (hereafter Li-Ion) batteries to wade through. There are a lot of misconceptions floating around as well. This simple guide addresses the most common notebook battery questions and concerns.

How long will my battery last?
Your notebook battery will deteriorate over time whether you use it or not. Although the Li-Ion industry does not publicize this fact, your battery’s clock began ticking the moment it was assembled. The elements inside your battery slowly react with each other, eventually rendering the battery unable to supply the required power to your notebook. In addition, your battery is rated to last between 300 and 800 charge/recharge cycles. It will gradually lose charge capacity rather than abruptly fail to power your notebook.

The general consensus is that notebook batteries last one to three years. While you can slow the battery’s aging and loss of capacity, you cannot stop either decline. The temperature of the battery, combined with the amount and nature of its usage contribute significantly to your battery’s lifespan. You can ease the aging process with some care and maintenance.TemperatureLower temperatures slow down the self-discharge (loss of charge while disconnected) and aging process of the elements within your battery. Therefore it follows that higher temperatures shorten the life of your battery. Leaving your battery connected while on AC power causes the internal temperature of the battery to rise. Removing your battery and storing it in a cool, dry place will help to slow the aging process. Keeping your notebook in a hot environment is also detrimental to your battery.Amount of UsageThe Lithium-Ion batteries used in notebooks are rated to handle between 300 and 800 charge/discharge cycles. Some of these cycles are used when you leave your battery connected to your notebook while on AC power. On AC power, the notebook will routinely “top-off” the battery when its charge reaches predetermined levels (i.e. 95%). Removing your battery and storing it in a cool, dry place will help to preserve some of these cycles.Nature of UsageLi-Ion batteries do not suffer from the memory-effect (requiring complete discharge before recharging to avoid loss of capacity) like older rechargeable batteries. Regular full discharge/recharge cycles result in an increased loss of capacity per cycle. A series of partial discharge cycles are better for Li-Ion batteries than a single full discharge. You should, however, calibrate your battery routinely.
Connected or Disconnected when on AC Power?Things to consider if:

You are removing the battery while on AC power:
Pros:
• Preserves charge cycles
• Keeps the battery temperature lower thus slowing the aging process
Cons:
• Lose the battery as backup power during power outages and voltage drops
• Unsaved work will be lost and data may be corrupted without backup power
• UPS (uninterruptible power supply) needed to serve as backup power source

You are leaving the battery connected while on AC power:
Pros:
• Battery serves as backup power during power outages and voltage drops
• More convenient for “grab-and-go” use
• Battery doesn’t require sufficient warming time (as it would after being stored in the refrigerator)
Cons:
• Loss of charge cycles
• Battery’s temperature is higher on AC power resulting in accelerated aging

Quick Reference: Simple Guidelines
• Heat is your battery’s worst enemy. Avoid keeping your battery in hot places such as your car during the daytime.
• A full discharge puts more strain on your battery than several partial discharges. You do not need to worry about battery memory with Li-Ion batteries. Get into the habit of recharging the battery when it reaches 10-20%.
• Never discharge your battery to 0% – as this can render your battery useless.
• Calibrate your battery’s fuel gauge by doing a full discharge every 30 cycles. Run the battery to the cut-off point in your notebook to keep the battery’s fuel gauge accurate.
• If you will be on AC power for an extended period of time, you can prolong your battery’s lifespan by removing it and putting it into prolonged storage.
• Prolonged storage should be done with a 40% charge-level and in a cool, dry place. Some experts recommend you place the battery in your refrigerator. Use a sealed plastic bag to keep moisture out if you do this.
• Do not freeze your battery.
• Allow a stored battery to warm to room temperature completely before using or recharging it.
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Ten Tips to increase your Laptop's Battery Life
Here are 10 simple, but effective tips to get more out of your laptop battery. There’s no rocket science involved. Just simple tricks.


Written by Tris Hussey of TNW.

1. Turn off WiFi and Bluetooth if you don’t need them. Obviously if you’re trying to be online when you’re on battery power you need to keep these on, but if you’re on a flight or someplace where you aren’t going to be online, just turn the WiFi off. Same goes for Bluetooth, if you don’t need it on, turn it off.
2. Turn down your screen brightness. While screens are a lot more efficient than the used to be, you can still squeeze more time out of your battery if the screen isn’t at full power. The trick here is turn down the screen until it’s too dark to use, then bump it up a notch or two. That should give you the right balance of brightness and power saving.
3. If you have a backlit keyboard, turn the light off. Just like the screen, the keyboard light drains the battery pretty quickly.
4. If you’re not using it, quit it. Every app that is running needs a little processor and hard drive time tostayrunning, all those apps add up to more drain. And don’t just quit the apps you can see all the extras like Dropbox or mouse tools or other add ons use power too…if you don’t really need them, just quit them.
5. If your laptop has a “power saving mode” use it. For example on MacBook Pros there is a setting for More Performance (it can tap into the graphics chip) or Better Battery (no graphics chip). Better battery is clearly the choice here.
6. Set your screen to turn off if not used in a couple minutes. I know it seems extreme, but if you can set your screen to turn off if you’re idle for a minute or two…believe it or not it will make a difference.
7. Have your computer go to sleep if idle for five minutes. Yes, I know, it sounds extreme, but still the idea is that if you’re not actively using your machine, then turning the screen off and going to sleep will help you eek out more power.
8. Avoid connecting things to USB ports or the DVD drive. You want to suck your batter dry in a flash? Connect a phone that needs to charge into your machine and watch a movie off the DVD drive at the same time. Those two are huge power draws, especially USB drives and phones that need charging (obviously a charging phone will suck power straight out of your battery). Just try to put off or avoid using them for long.
9. Use a RAM disk. This is a little geeky, but here’s the idea. If you need to work on a document instead of constantly reading and writing to your hard drive, a RAM disk is a temporary disk that is saved all in RAM. Not accessing the drive means less power usage. Back in the day we used to use RAM disks to speed up all sorts of functions on our machines (an old trick was to put your Firefox cache on a RAM disk), but the trick seems to have fallen out of favor. The utility I used on my Mac (and unwisely deleted) doesn’t seem to be available, but OS X Daily has simple instructions for Mac users. For Windows users I haven’t been able to find something that looks reliable (suggestions are welcome).
10. Run your battery down once a month. I know this is controversial. Yes, it was certainly true that older batteries had a “memory effect” problem, but it was thought that new ones didn’t. I guess we were wrong because even Apple recommends draining your battery once a month. In fact, I’m draining my battery as I’m writing this post. Not only that I’ve disregarded all the advice here (well except for using the DVD drive). It’s still taken nearly two hours to run the machine until it’s down to reserve power. The next step is to just let the the machine drop into sleep and run the battery completely down, then charge it back up.