Question Crucial P3 Plus 4TB on PCI 3.0 will be as power efficient as the P3?

[vaibhavgarg]

I have been waiting for the P3 4TB to come in stock in my area.. I didnt want to get the P3 Plus as it uses slightly more power compared to the P3 but I wonder if P3 Plus uses the same power as P3 on the PCIe 3.0 interface.......

I want to use it in Ayaneo 2 Handheld gaming PC so power consumption is important.

Ref: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crucial-p3-ssd-review/2

 

[hotaru.hino]

The P3 plus will likely use less energy than normal using PCIe 3.0, but I don't think it'll matter overall. The SSD is only going to consume that much power while something is going on. So unless you're constantly loading stuff from it (which you shouldn't), then it's going to be idling most of the time.

 

[Misgar]

If I'm reading the data sheets correctly, the 4TB P3 has sequential Read/Write speeds of 3,500/3,000MB/s
https://uk.crucial.com/ssd/p3/CT4000P3SSD8

The 4TB P3 Plus is 4,800/4,100MB/s.
https://uk.crucial.com/products/ssd/crucial-p3-plus-ssd

Despite using more power (which I haven't confirmed) the P3 Plus should complete tasks sooner, so the overall power consumption might be close to that of the P3.
https://quarch.com/news/test-your-ssds-power-versus-performance/

The P3 appears to be significantly cheaper than the P3 Plus, so it's a difficult decision. Spend more on a faster drive, or less on a slower drive. Of course the Ayaneo might not benefit from a faster drive.

Most 4TB M.2 NVMe drives have memory chips soldered on both sides, which can lead to problems in thin laptops and hand held devices.

Make sure your handheld is compatible with double-sided M.2 drives which tend to be thicker than single-sided versions.

 

[sonofjesse]

What is the concern over power usage? It's going to be so little you won't be able to notice a difference.

 

[Misgar]

On a small handheld battery powered device, a difference of 1W in NVMe power consumption could reduce battery life (playing time) by 15 minutes. I suspect that's what the OP is concerned about.

 

[hotaru.hino]

On a small handheld battery powered device, a difference of 1W in NVMe power consumption could reduce battery life (playing time) by 15 minutes. I suspect that's what the OP is concerned about.

This isn't really a helpful metric unless we know more about what's going on in the system.

For instance if this were a really low power device, like consuming around 4-5W, then sure, milliwatts matters for battery life. But if the device is using 15W when actually doing something, then milliwatts start to matter less. With regards to storage, it also depends on how long the storage drive is operating.

For instance if we say an NVMe SSD uses 3W on average for any operation, but idles at 0.4W and over the course of an hour it spent 1 minute total doing something, then it only spent 0.44WHr. If we bump up the average power consumption to 4W, then that goes up to 0.46WHr. However, a difference 0.02WHr is still pretty small. And for these portable PCs, they're likely to go up to say 10-20W (in the case of the Ayaneo 2, 11W or 22W depending on which mode you're using). So adding another 0.02WHr on top of 22WHr makes about as much of a difference as putting out a whole house fire with pee.

 

[Maxxify]

I have been waiting for the P3 4TB to come in stock in my area.. I didnt want to get the P3 Plus as it uses slightly more power compared to the P3 but I wonder if P3 Plus uses the same power as P3 on the PCIe 3.0 interface.......

In this case, yes. The P3 Plus will down-clock and -bus for PCIe 3.0 in a manner similar to the P3 as they have the same controller and flash. This isn't universally true in other cases because there are different controller revisions (e.g. SM2262EN/G which can have different clocks) and flash (including different MT/s of same type, with the possibility of higher native MT/s flash being slightly superior). The P3/P3 Plus situation is somewhat unique and Crucial is trying to appeal to both markets with minimal retooling (PHY link speed can be switched in firmware which will have keys to prevent unlocking, in the least). From the VLO reports I have from both drives, they really are identical, with the P3 being slightly cheaper for its 3.0 limitation. (such segmentation is common in other hardware component categories)

You would essentially have the bus go from 1600 MT/s to 1200 MT/s in both cases (the firmware would detect the negotiating 3.0 host link speed) on the controller end with the flash being 1600 MT/s in both cases (so negotiated to 1200 MT/s). Same controller which varies its clock based on MT/s and flash I/O speed requirements, so same end clock. They should perform precisely the same.