If I'm taking a 10 minute break away from my laptop, should I use the sleep function, turn off the screen only or leave it on? I tend to take breaks every 40 minutes or so throughout the day and was wondering if there's any evidence as to what is best for the long term health of my laptop?
I also sleep my computer overnight - should I be turning it off completely or hibernating?
I don't know if there is any documentation to support this, but I would say for the 5-10 minutes breaks, just lock the screen and leave it on especially if on A/C power. If you are on battery, it could be beneficial to close the lid and let it go to sleep although the savings would be minimal, and I don't think it would make a significant difference to the long-term health of your laptop.
For the overnights, or any long term duration, I would recommending turning it off completely and not using hibernation, especially if your laptop contains an SSD in which hibernation will very significant effect on the longevity of your solid state drive. Be aware that many Linux distributions have completely done away with "Hibernation" and it is generally recommended to disable it, if it is still enabled.
Returning to active use from Hibernation is often the same amount of time as a full boot-up, so there is no real benefit to hibernation. Hibernation also tends to make us lazy, because your computer will supposedly start up and be in the exact same state as when it was shut off, with the same open programs, documents, etc. which tends to make people forget to properly close files. If the hibernation file does not load correctly or becomes corrupt, the boot basically becomes a standard boot and all of those files (and potential changes or saves) are lost.
There are many good articles online regarding this, and just as many opinions. Best to research it make your own opinion on the subject. Here is a good place to start.
