Does going to SSD on a laptop actually save power?

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pookguy88

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In theory, since there's no moving parts, shouldn't going to SSD from a mechanical HDD save power on a laptop? Or is this a myth? I've heard people saying it does and other saying it doesn't..
 
A little, yes. Still, the disc drive power usage is a very small fraction of a laptop's total power usage, so I wouldn't expect a noticeable difference in battery life.
 
I replaced the 250gb Seagate that came with my netbook (an HP Mini-311) with a 40gb Intel X-25V and I did notice a slight improvement on run time. Maybe an additional 20 mins or so.
 
It is not a myth, you can look up the power consumption on the manufacturers' web sites, although there seems to be something horribly wrong with Western Digital SSDs or specs:

WD Scorpio Blue HDD:
- Read/Write: 2.5 W
- Idle: 2 W
- Standby: 0.5 W
- Sleep: 0.1 W

WD SiliconEdge Blue SSD:
- Read: 2.0 Watts
- Write: 3.5 Watts
- Sleep: 0.6 Watts

Intel 320 Series SSD:
- Active: 0.15 W
- Idle: 0.10 W

@[LYL]Homer: The Momentus is an hybrid SSD/HDD.
 
When it first appeared it was mostly a myth because SSD took between 1 and 2W just like HDD.

I'm not sure I can believe 0.15W figures.

In the end, even if the SSD takes less power, it's very common for the battery life to suffer, because the SSD is so much faster that you get more things done, hence more CPU, chipset and memory usage.
 
Unless you have a finite amount of things to do. Then you will get more life because you can do those things faster and shutdown the computer when you're done.

If you have an infinite amount of things to do on your computer you have more problems than battery life lol.
 
Its not a myth but it really depends on each individual case. The biggest power drawing in a laptop are the screen (size matters), gpu and cpu. In a 17'' gaming laptop an ssd has very neglible impact, as the other componets draw a lot more than a hdd. But in a netbook or small culv laptop it might as the screen is small, probably on intel integrated video, and those cpus are 18W or less, so under this conditions might give you extra time on a hdd, the mos important value would be idle, and here is where the samsung 470 ssds excel.

But geeting some extra time on your laptop shouldn't be the reason or focus on buying a laptop, but its speed, if you factor than an ssd will load faster this in theory also saves you battery as you won't need as much time to do the same.
 
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