Spring 2010 Solid State Drive Roundup, Part 2

Power Consumption And Efficiency

If you’re looking for particularly low power consumption, go no further than Intel or Toshiba. Both stay at 0.1W in idle. Our three new drives all require 0.6W or more.

At maximum throughput, Toshiba’s HG2 and the Indilinx drives are most efficient. Intel and especially the two new drives using JMicron's JM61x hardware disappoint somewhat.

HD video playback creates a constant data stream with a consistent power load. Once again, Kingston and Western Digital require more power than most competitors. Intel and Toshiba win out by being extremely close to idle power with this type of workload.

The differences are less significant under high I/O activity.

Toshiba rules on power efficiency during streaming reads because of its extremely low power consumption. Kingston and WD don’t compare well here because of their markedly higher power consumption. Although this doesn’t impact desktop applications much, it's possible for an SSD to run at much lower power and deliver high performance at the same time.