For Reference, SSD Versus HDD: Power And Performance
Do you transcode video, copy large amounts of data, or run your own Web server? If you consistently perform I/O-intensive tasks, SSDs are a great way to improve speed. But even if you only browse the Internet, SSDs still offer tangible benefits in performance and power. Take a look at the CPU utilization and power consumption results from one of our recent reviews:
A disk-based drive will always consume more power absolutely. At the system level, an SSD increases power consumption because CPU and memory utilization rises in response to increased I/O activity (they're not sitting there, waiting on a hard drive to send data). But remember that an SSD-based configuration will always finish those operations faster. You see that reflected in the charts above. At the end of the day, an SSD lowers power consumption. This is why performance and power go hand-in-hand.
PCMark Vantage (x64) HDD Suite | Average Power Rating (W) | ActualPower Used (mW) | AverageCPU utilization (%) | Completion Time (mm:ss) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Kingston SSDNow 100 V+ | 0.6 | 85 | 14.7 | 8:06 |
OCZ Agility 2 | 1.4 | 186 | 10.9 | 7:54 |
Intel X25-M | 1.4 | 242 | 10.8 | 10:17 |
OCZ Vertex 3 Pro | 1.6 | 207 | 15.1 | 7:41 |
OCZ Vertex 2 | 1.9 | 269 | 13.9 | 8:28 |
Seagate Momentus 5400.6 | 2.2 | 426 | 10.4 | 11:40 |
OCZ Vertex 3 | 2.3 | 305 | 15.1 | 7:50 |
G.Skill SATA II FM-25S2S-64GB | 2.6 | 369 | 13.5 | 8:40 |
especially 1st time buyers.
Honorable Mentions for laptop use? The price premium surely doesn't cover 16GB of extra capacity …