SanDisk Pushing For Low Power Consumption SSDs

Tuesday during the Intel Developers Forum, SanDisk revealed what it calls the "SATA DEVSLP " initiative. With companies like Intel, Samsung and Microsoft already on-board, the company is pushing the industry to provide SSDs to OEMs with SATA performance at significantly lower power consumption than current offerings.

Implementation is already planned for future devices, chipsets and operating systems, SanDisk said.

"Intel is aligned and supportive of low power SATA to reduce the total power budget," said Erik Reid, general manager, mobile client platforms, Intel. "We are pleased to join SanDisk in leading this initiative and are very excited about its implications for the future of mobile computing. Innovation in ultra portable designs is dependent on important efficiency gains. By supporting SATA DEVSLP standardization, we’ll be enabling innovative designs for countless future mobile devices."

According to SanDisk, today's "best-in-class" SSDs support low power consumption of 50mW. However, under the new SATA DEVSLP initiative, SATA storage will remain in a low power state the majority of the time. This will improve power consumption by "an order of magnitude" compared to previous solutions, SanDisk said.

"As the industry trends toward creating ever thinner and faster truly mobile computing products, the performance versus power demand tradeoffs will have even greater influence in the design process," said Kevin Conley, senior vice president, client storage solutions, SanDisk. "Anticipating this growing challenge, we set to work on the SATA DEVSLP technologies to offer considerably more power-efficient options to anyone designing in the mobile space. We’re pleased to be working closely with our partners to enable the next generation of low power SATA computing devices."

  • GreaseMonkey_62
    SSD's are already low power compared to platter hard drives. Personally I'd like to see a lower cost per GB first.
    Reply
  • scuba dave
    As even HDD's don't consume anything really, in terms of power(especially compared to everything else..) I'd say their efforts would be far better used on decreasing power requirements of the major consumption culprits. CPUs, GPUs, and Backlighting..

    But seriously, any progress can only help. I just don't see anything here to be *excited about*
    Reply
  • jacobdrj
    If low power equals low speed, what would be the benefit, other than the durability in relation to a lack of moving parts?
    Reply
  • Chainzsaw
    Somewhat laughable.

    SSD's are already much less power hungry than traditional HDD's.

    Heck even for laptops, the screens, GPU's and processors use much much more power than SSD drives already.
    Reply
  • Just an excuse to not make an effort to lower $/GB
    Reply
  • jakes69
    they should definitely patent it before apple does.
    Reply
  • jacobdrj
    ChainzsawSomewhat laughable.SSD's are already much less power hungry than traditional HDD's.Heck even for laptops, the screens, GPU's and processors use much much more power than SSD drives already.In the grand scheme of things, SSDs (and even HDDs) don't consume that much power, relative to the other components of a mobile device. However, SanDisk doesn't make LCDs or fans or touch-pads or CPUs or GPUs...
    They make memory...
    They should strive to make them as power efficient as possible...

    Besides, some SSDs do get hot, even compared to HDDs. You can feel them under your keyboard on some laptops. Heat = lost energy. Even just making them more energy efficient would be a welcomed improvement.
    Reply
  • phatbuddha79
    But with such low power usage, can it play Crysis 2???
    Reply
  • g00fysmiley
    i'd welcome efficiency... to those sayign they still cost to much all i can say is that prices are going down... heck i bought my 60 gig ocz agility drive for 65 buck thats almost a dollar a gig which is the magic point some people talk about... the same drive is on new egg right now again on sale for 70 bucks... give it time they'll get cheaper and cheaper and effciency is always welcome 32nm chips all abroad for cpu's and soon die shrinks for gpu's soon I for one will welcome less heat coming from my computer... currently my 2 460's paired with my 955 do great... btu in the summer that is alot of heat being pumped into my room
    Reply
  • eddieroolz
    And here I was, under impression that SSDs were already super power efficient.
    Reply