Electrical consumption of Hard Disk

  • Thread starter Thread starter David Nguyen
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David Nguyen

Hello,
I wonder what is electrical consumption in Watt/hour of SATA Disk.
if the disk is reading all the time
if the disk is writing all the time
if the disk is doing nothing.
Thanks
 
David said:
Hello,
I wonder what is electrical consumption in Watt/hour of SATA Disk.
if the disk is reading all the time
if the disk is writing all the time
if the disk is doing nothing.
Thanks
Click to expand...

It depends on the disk. Go to the manufacturer's Web site and look
it up.

Expect numbers around 10 watts.
 
CJT said:
It depends on the disk. Go to the manufacturer's Web site and look
it up.

Expect numbers around 10 watts.
Click to expand...

I have only Voltage and Current , there is 5 V and 12 V
How can I calculate the watt per hour consumption ?
 
David said:
I have only Voltage and Current , there is 5 V and 12 V
How can I calculate the watt per hour consumption ?
Click to expand...

DC power = voltage multiplied by current.
 
Previously J. Clarke said:
David Nguyen wrote:
Click to expand...
DC power = voltage multiplied by current.
Click to expand...

Take care though to take the average currrent numbers and not
the peak numbers.

Reading/writing are not that power intensive, the seeks are.

"Does nothing" with or without spin-down?

Arno
 
David said:
I have only Voltage and Current , there is 5 V and 12 V
How can I calculate the watt per hour consumption ?
Click to expand...

W=EI

Power in watts = Potential in volts * Current in amps

"Watt per hour" is a meaningless quantity +/-.

The total (instantaneous) consumption by the drive is the sum of the
consumptions from the 5V and 12V supplies. How to average those over
time involves a bit of voodoo (assumptions about the mix of read / write
/ quiet) -- how the manufacturer suggests doing it is usually carefully
spelled out in the specs.

Consume one watt for one hour and you have consumed one watt-hour;
that's what the electric company charges for (with some embellishments).

See any high school physics text.
 
I have only Voltage and Current , there is 5 V and 12 V
How can I calculate the watt per hour consumption ?
Click to expand...

An example:
http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/personal/family/0,1085,599,00.html
look under power requirements. (don't mean to seem condescending)

AFAIK the traditional rule of thumb is to expect it to briefly draw up
to twice the amount of power cited during startup so you have to allow
for that during integration planning. I may be wrong because this
also dates back to the days when personal storage consumed quite a bit
less juice than enterprise storage- so who knows what else has changed
(but it's still good to allow for that extra safety margin anyhow).
 
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