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I have read in threads like this that SSDs are more power efficient than HDDs. However, I'm wondering if for instance if a 500GB SSD would be more or less power efficient than a 2TB SSD for standard at-home workloads.

Thanks!

shivsta
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2 Answers2

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I know that SSDs consumes incredibly small quantities of power, and a larger SSD would not be expected to consume a noticeably different amount of power. The amount of power drawn depends on the SSD's model, increases only slightly with increasing capacity, and generally varies in power draw by so little that it's extremely unlikely for you to encounter a situation where a SSD upgrade would produce a change in power consumption large enough for you to notice it. I recommend you to read the article I provided in comment.

Sysadmin
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There is a big difference in power consumption between an SSD and an HDD; it is around 10x in consumption.

Larger SSD will consume slightly more than their smaller counterpart. For instance, the SAMSUNG 990 pro specification sheet report:

  • 1TB SSD: Average: 5.4 W Maximum: 7.8 W
  • 2TB SSD: Average: 5.5 W Maximum: 8.5 W

I guess 0.1 watts will be negligible for most users.

However, more than the size, the model of SSD will have quite a large impact on your consumption, as Tomshardware states:

Idle power consumption is a very important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a new drive for your laptop. Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state faster, which ultimately saves power.

To conclude, it seems that if you seek power efficiency/battery life, SATA SSD should be better than PCIe SSD. As most users do not need PCIe speed (to some ex, seeking for the most power-efficient SSD available, then choosing the required size is probably the best heuristic to follow.

Adrien Pacifico
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