The SSD Power Consumption Hoax

Mobilemark Results

Mobilemark: Performance Results

The performance score of Mobilemark is important, as it reflects the performance level of a particular drive solution in real life, based on actual applications. As you can see, the conventional drive by Hitachi doesn’t do badly at all.

Mobilemark: Battery Runtime Results

These were the most interesting results for us: none of the solid state drives was capable of reaching longer battery runtimes using Mobilemark 07. Keep in mind that this benchmark keeps the system busy in several disciplines, and the results would of course be different if we measured the runtime in idle. However, this wouldn’t quite reflect user behavior, as no one turns the notebook on just to wait around until the battery runs empty.

Clearly, flash SSDs cannot live up to manufacturer claims and user expectations when it comes to potentially improving notebook battery runtime. In fact, they reduce the runtime by a significant amount, depending on the particular flash SSD used.