HDD vs SSD temps + power consumption?

[Okjoek]

It's probably negligable as to the effect it has on PSU load, power bills and overall system temp, but I'm still curious how much power and heat both storage types use/give off.

[AskTJ]

Quote

 

A drive that runs at 12 V and draws 100 mA of current would consume 1.2 Watts of power. To restate - if you ran that drive for an hour, you'd consume 1.2 Watt-hours ofpower. In your case, 2 Watts vs 6 Watts, your cost would be 1/3 for an SSD vs HD.

 

Quoted from an article.

[desertcomputer]

Also if drive is writing/reading will generate more heat but power supply is marginal.

[WereCatf]

I have a Samsung 1TB 850 EVO and two WD Blues. Looking at their specs, the SSD has an average consumption of 2.7W while in active use, and only 0.05W when idle. The mechanical 3.5" drives, however, have an average consumption of 4.1W while in active use, and when idling, they still use 3W of power. This is to say, the SSD uses an average of 66% of the power of mechanical drives in my system when reading/writing, but only ~1.67% when idling. Considering the fact that SSDs are generally much faster even in sequential operations, but a whole lot faster when it comes to random operations, they get to idle a lot, lot more than HDDs, and that means that for the same workload, the SSD's power-consumption would amount to a fraction of the HDD.

[Spotty]

The power usage for the devices should be listed in the specifications sheet for the product provided by the manufacturer. Check the manufacturers website with the device model to check how much power each device uses. Power usage will vary slightly between models, particularly between NVME vs Sata SSDs vs HDDs, as well as 7200RPM vs 5400RPM drives. It can even vary between different capacity models of the same series.

As an example, here's a spec sheet for some Seagate Barracuda HDDs that have peak power usage listed between 3W-8W depending on the model. Idle (spinning but not reading/writing data) is around 2-5W. Standby/sleep (not spinning) power usage is less than 1W.

^{https://www.seagate.com/www-content/datasheets/pdfs/3-5-barracudaDS1900-10-1802GB-en_AU.pdf}

 

As an example of NVME drives, here's the Samsung 960 evo specs. Approximately 5W-6W while in use depending on the model, and 0.04W while idle.

^{https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/consumer/960evo/}


As an example of SATA drives (2.5") here is the Samsung 860 Evo specs. Between 2-4W while in use depending on the model, and 0.05W while idle.


^{https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/consumer/860evo/}

[Spotty]

23 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

The mechanical 3.5" drives, however, have an average consumption of 4.1W while in active use, and when idling, they still use 3W of power. This is to say, the SSD uses an average of 66% of the power of mechanical drives in my system when reading/writing, but only ~1.67% when idling. Considering the fact that SSDs are generally much faster even in sequential operations, but a whole lot faster when it comes to random operations, they get to idle a lot, lot more than HDDs, and that means that for the same workload, the SSD's power-consumption would amount to a fraction of the HDD.

While it is a good point that SSDs can work faster and therefore able to spend less time in an active state, it's not necessarily the reason why they use less power. The main reason mechanical HDDs consume more power while in idle states is that the HDD still needs to spin the discs/platters even when it is not actively reading or writing data. It's the motor that is driving the spinning platters that is using the power. It maintains its rotation speed so that when a request to read/write data is made, it can do so relatively quickly.

Drives can spin down if they are not in use through power management, which will further lower the amount of power the drive is consuming. Depending on the model of drive, it could be around 0.2W that it uses in this state (still more than most SSDs, but a lot less than normal spinning idling). However, it will take a few seconds for the drive to spin back up to speed to be able to read/write once a request is made. When you try to open the drive or access a file on it, the drive will hang for a second or two and you will be able to hear it start to spin up before it will open. This wouldn't be practical for an OS drive that is constantly accessing OS and program files, but can be useful for a drive that isn't being accessed often, such as a backup drive or movie drive.

[AskTJ]

Both SSD and HDD will use under 10 watts in all configuartions.

[WereCatf]

3 hours ago, Spotty said:

While it is a good point that SSDs can work faster and therefore able to spend less time in an active state, it's not necessarily the reason why they use less power.

I disagree, it definitely is one of the reasons why they use less power. I know full well how HDDs work, so there's no need to explain it to me, and besides, nothing you said counters what I said; the SSDs get to spend a lot more time in idle-state and the difference between their idle-state and active-state is a lot, lot larger than an HDD's idle-state and active-state, therefore very much being a contributor to their power-efficiency.

[WereCatf]

4 hours ago, AskTJ said:

Both SSD and HDD will use under 10 watts in all configuartions.

Depends a lot on the HDD in question!

[AskTJ]

5 hours ago, WereCatf said:

Depends a lot on the HDD in question!

Talking about today. Those would use a lot I presume?

[WereCatf]

9 minutes ago, AskTJ said:

Talking about today. Those would use a lot I presume?

I actually tried to Google for any power-consumption numbers, but came up empty. I mean, sure, just to get the platter spinning, it'd need a really beefy motor, but exact numbers are difficult to find!