Slow hibernation

[fschwep]

Not so muc a question as a remark. Like other people I have been troubled by slow hibernation of my TPs from time to time. The problem troubled me on a T42, and right now I have an X31 which is very slow in going into hibernation.
I found that the greatest factor in hibernation speed seems to be the activation of write caching on the harddisk (My Computer/Harddisk/Properties/Hardware/Policies). With caching on, the X31 manages to write its full GB of RAM to the hiberfile in a few seconds; with caching off, it takes ages - longer than it takes to start this subject and write it up. The weird thing is that with caching activated, it only takes one or two seconds after the machine switches off its screen to end all disk activity, looking at the disk light.
I would prefer to have caching switched off as it reduces the chances of data loss in case of a hardware problem, but in this case it is more of an advantage to have fast hibernation, especially in a very mobile machine that is often switched off for a while and restarted.

So, for fast hibernation: keep write caching on. Otherwise, forget hibernation.