Hibernation/Deep Sleep

Question

On my MBP i use Smartsleep to set the hibernatemode to '1' which means when i click 'sleep' it saves the state to the hard disk and then sleeps - using no battery power during sleep.
The MBA is set to hibernatemode '3' by default - which means the current state is saved to RAM and the machine uses battery power during sleep.
Whether i try Smartsleep or Axonic Deepsleep or whether i use pmset in terminal to manually set the mode, the result is the same, it still only saves the state to RAM and therefore continues to use battery power whilst asleep.
I tried this on 2 MBA's, the same result.
Can anyone help?
thanks!

Answer 1

According to the manual entry for pmset,
the mode your looking for is hibernatemode=25.
Air's seem to ship in mode 3,
which would keep the RAM powered at least by definition in the man entry.
Here's the quote from pmset man entry:
We do not recommend modifying hibernation settings. Any changes you make
are not supported. If you choose to do so anyway, we recommend using one
of these three settings. For your sake and mine, please don't use any-
thing other 0, 3, or 25.
hibernatemode = 0 (binary 0000) by default on supported desktops. The
system will not back memory up to persistent storage. The system must
wake from the contents of memory; the system will lose context on power
loss. This is, historically, plain old sleep.
hibernatemode = 3 (binary 0011) by default on supported portables. The
system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and
will power memory during sleep. The system will wake from memory, unless
a power loss forces it to restore from disk image.
hibernatemode = 25 (binary 0001 1001) is only settable via pmset. The
system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and
will remove power to memory. The system will restore from disk image. If
you want "hibernation" - slower sleeps, slower wakes, and better battery
life, you should use this setting.
....