Power Requirements
We already mentioned that Hitachi did a great job in creating the three platter Travelstar 5K500, which maintains almost the same power requirements as the 320GB two platter Travelstar 3K320: both require approximately 1 watt of power when idle and 3 watts when active. Samsung’s new 500GB drive disappointed, as it requires 1.3 W in idle and up to 3.6 W under load. These are power consumption numbers we’d expect for 7,200 RPM drives, but not for a new three-platter 2.5” 5,400 RPM model.
