How much power do drives use?

[jonw757]

Well I have a 1TB server at home and am trying to save some money on the electricity bill and was wondering how much electricity a HD actually uses. Ive got 6 250GB drives in it and 1 80GB for OS. I was looking to take out possibly 3 of the 250GB drives if its going to save me enough money to make it worth it. Anyone have any ideas? TIA... :)

[DougLite]

Clicky (http://www.storagereview.com/php/benchmark/suite_v4.php?typeID=10&testbedID=4&osID=6&raidconfigID=1&numDrives=1&devID_0=305&devID_1=285&devID_2=301&devID_3=297&devCnt=4), scroll to the bottom. There you will find power draw figures, in watts, for a variety of drives.

Are your 250GB drives by chance older silver topped WD Caviars? If so, I'd tack another watt or two onto the DM10 figures provided.

[tdg]

Typically about 30 watts to startup, and after that ~ 15 watts reading/writing, and a little less idling.

[jonw757]

Seagate 7200.8 :)

Thanks!

[mikeblas]

Go to the Seagate website and find the data sheet.

Here's the data sheet for some of the 7200.8 drives (http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_barracuda7200.8.pdf), which says it uses a peak of 33.6 watts at startup and 12.8 watts operating.