Results: Power Consumption
In our Micron M500DC review, we detailed our new power consumption testing. In short, we apply varying workloads to the SSD we'r benchmarking and then measure the current draw using a high-resolution, high-precision industrial power source. Using this hardware, we can achieve millisecond resolution for our power measurements, allowing us to observe even slight changes in consumption.
As you can see from our power profile, Samsung's 845DC EVO does not pull down much power under our workloads. Even during random writes, the maximum power draw we observed was right at 3 W.
If you are looking for a drive that has a low active idle, this probably isn't the drive for you (even though our measurements come in under the 1.5 W specified by Samsung's datasheet).
Overall, the 845DC EVO posts some of the lowest power levels in the field, bested only by its sibling, the SM843. Hopefully this helps make up for higher idle consumption, especially since enterprise-oriented SSDs typically have a much higher duty cycle than consumer SSDs.
