[SOLVED] SSD upgrade and power consumption differences

[matt_souza]

I'm replacing my laptop's SSD, and I'm considering two options: 500GB WD Green SN350 and 500GB WD_BLACK SN750. My laptop is a VivoBook 15 (X513EP), and it came with a Western Digital's 256GB PC SN530. Looking over the specs for these three SSDs, I see that the SN750 seems to draw more power and probably runs hotter than the other two. In fact, the SN530 specs show 20mW for low power mode and 1.4A for peak power, while the same numbers for the SN750 are 70mW and 2.8A. Also, the SN750 has a version that comes with a heatsink, thus my assumption that it is hotter than the other two.

So, my questions are: should my laptop be able to meet SN750's power demands, and what kind of effect would that have in, say, battery life or thermal management? I believe it should have no problems driving the SN750, but I don't want to leave that to chance and I can't find anything on Google.

Thanks.

 

[fzabkar]

Western Digital PC SN530 NVMe SSD Product Manual:
https://downloads.sandisk.com/downloads/um/pcsn530-pm.pdf

The Peak Power and In-Rush Current (page 18) is specified at 1.4A for the 256GB for the Western Digital PC SN530 NVMe SSD.

Average active power consumption is 70mW (page 17). The Operating Power Consumption is specified on page 18.

I believe the Black SN750 may be similar (identical?) to the PC SN730 (OEM model). The average power consumption for the SN730 is 100mW.

Western Digital PC SN730 NVMe SSD Product Manual:
https://downloads.sandisk.com/downloads/um/pcsn730-pm.pdf

AFAICT, your battery is rated for 42Wh. An SSD that consumes 100mW at 3.3V would require 330mW of power, on average. If you run it for 10 hours, its energy consumption would be 3.3Wh, which is less than one tenth of the battery's capacity.

 

[humbucker_blues]

Average active power consumption is 70mW (page 17). The Operating Power Consumption is specified on page 18.

I believe the Black SN750 may be similar (identical?) to the PC SN730 (OEM model). The average power consumption for the SN730 is 100mW.

Have a look at this post by Chris Ramsayer, who has done a huge number of reviews of SSDs for Tweaktown, now works for Phison, and measured the different battery life of many SSDs.
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/hnjzel/comment/fxg3zhb/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3


In reality, SSDs with low measured numbers in tests can give really poor battery life compared with efficient SSDs, particularly OEM drives, and always Samsung ones.

He did a comparison between all the drives which is very interesting:
https://www.tweaktown.com/articles/8856/best-ssds-notebooks-two-year-study/index.html

I'm replacing my laptop's SSD, and I'm considering two options: 500GB WD Green SN350 and 500GB WD_BLACK SN750. My laptop is a VivoBook 15 (X513EP), and it came with a Western Digital's 256GB PC SN530. Looking over the specs for these three SSDs, I see that the SN750 seems to draw more power and probably runs hotter than the other two. In fact, the SN530 specs show 20mW for low power mode and 1.4A for peak power, while the same numbers for the SN750 are 70mW and 2.8A. Also, the SN750 has a version that comes with a heatsink, thus my assumption that it is hotter than the other two.

So, my questions are: should my laptop be able to meet SN750's power demands, and what kind of effect would that have in, say, battery life or thermal management? I believe it should have no problems driving the SN750, but I don't want to leave that to chance and I can't find anything on Google.

Thanks.

See above, especially the second link for efficient drives. Unfortunately it's a couple of years old now, and they don't do the same battery life test any more in reviews. But you can scout some good older drives which will perform well on the used market.