Do MacBooks have a true "Hibernate" option? I've recently switched from Windows to a MacBook pro. In Windows, there are the following shutdown options:


Standby - the machine goes into a "light sleep" from which it can awaken very quickly (like, in a few seconds), but plenty of energy is consumed.
Hibernate - the OS dumps the current system state (including the contents of the RAM) to a file, then turns the machine off. Wakeup takes longer than from standby, but there is no latent energy consumption. 
Shut down - the OS shuts down, and the machine is turned off. 


In OS X, what I can see is


Sleep - seems equivalent to standby, or an even lighter form of sleep as Mail seems to even continue to poll for new email? 
Shutdown and restore all apps on next start - turns off machine, seems to start the OS from scratch and restart alls apps - from what I can tell, it's not hibernation
Shutdown and don't restore apps - shut down


is this correct, and does OS X not have a true "hibernate" mode that can write its state to disk? Because that's what I'm looking for really. There's talk of a "Safe Sleep" mode on the Internets, but I can't see it in my OS X menu. Is it hidden in 10.7?
When newer laptops are put to sleep, they should save the contents of the RAM to /var/vm/sleepimage but keep the RAM powered as well. Desktop Macs should just use normal sleep mode by default.

man pmset:

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.



0 (traditional sleep mode): fast wake up and sleep, saves disk space
3 (default safe sleep mode): fast wake up and sleep, state is kept when losing power
25 (hibernation): saves energy, state is kept when losing power


You can see which mode your Mac uses with pmset -g | grep hibernatemode and change it with sudo pmset -a hibernatemode $mode.

Some newer Macs support a standby mode on 10.8 and later. Even if hibernatemode was set to 3, they power off memory after a bit over an hour of sleep.