The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Fabulous-Ball4198 on 2024-12-28 12:29:39.

Hi,

I’m improving my little “home server” regarding power efficiency. Time for system drive.

In short story my current setup is 5x 4TB 2.5" ZFS RAIDZ, each HDD is rated as 0.85A + Samsung Evo 850 rated 1A. Evo must go…

Theory:

Storage: 0.85A = 5V * 0.85A = 4.25W/each at peak time.

System: 1A = 5V * 1A = 5W at peak time. This one must go.

Personal profile: I need only 50GB for system drive, so anything more is simply unused. This unit is remotely accessed by LAN/WiFi which is faster than HDD performance but slower than SSDs so SSD performance is not important at all as long as this is reputable SSD and not HDD.

I’ve tried to ask in several places so far but it seems not many people pay attention to so small details. Some said to me mSATA is most power efficient, but then I’ve found myself possibly (theory) some SATA more power efficient than mSATA. So, I’ve done little more research myself to find some SSDs basing on ratings stated on labels. I won’t use NVMe, however included for others. NVMe in my opinion is the future, but not in current format, it will change at least twice in the next 10years then it will be for many years with us as best performance/power efficient solution. But this is only my own opinion.

I do it not only to save electricity but for educational purposes as well, so I’ll ignore comments like “not worth saving”, “not worth time”. +I’m sure some minority of us will find this positive and easy database for power efficient small SSD system drive, so if you have anything lower amps in drawer (not more than 1A) and you see it not listed here, comment please, I’ll update list. Target list is: not more than 1A, so we can create larger list of low powered SSDs. List shows no rule really if mSATA, SATA or power hungry NVMe if taken in to consideration only power consumption and not capacity, performance or SSD generation.

This is still very inaccurate, because:

  • Slower SSD will work longer to finish task so it may take more power on the end, or idle could be higher than other power hungry SSD

  • In different personal circumstances you will access as low as twice a day in to your system so idle power is most important, or other person dozen of time so read/write low power is more important rather than idle.

  • Someone can have really fast home internal network so performance matter where higher amps SSD will do job faster, saving overall energy. Someone else could have slower network where SSD is often waiting, so slower SSD with lower amps would be then best to save energy.

Here is no direct answer, because power hungry SSD can be still more energy efficient than low amps SSD. It all depends of personal use/system. It cannot be straight answer “which” for everyone, but by having overall labelled low power SSDs those looking for power efficiency like me could have good starting point.

Final test will be by connecting multimeter and measuring amps during normal work and taking average for own personal system profile.

SATA 5V:
Samsung 128GB: 0.5A:  PM851 MZ-7TE128D
Samsung 256GB: 0.5A:  PM871 MZ-7LN256D
Samsung 256GB: 0.43A: SM841N MZ-7PD256E
Samsung 256GB: 0.22A: MZ-7PA2560/0D1
Samsung 256GB: 0.5A:  PM871B MZ-7LN256F
Samsung 512GB: 0.5A:  SM871 MZ-7KN512D
Samsung 512GB: 0.5A:  PM851 MZ-7TE512D
mSATA 3.3V:
Samsung 128GB: 0.65A: SM841 MZ-MPD128D
Samsung 128GB: 0.31A: MZ-MPA1280/0D1
Samsung 256GB: 0.65A: SM841 MZ-MPD256D
Samsung 256GB: 0.65A: SM841N MZ-MPD256E
NVMe (mixed) 3.3V:
SanDisk 32GB: 0.35A:  SDSA6MM032G
Samsung 128GB: 0.8A:  CM871 MZ-NLF1280
LiteON 512GB: 0.95A:  CV3-8D51211

storage
SATA HDD 2.5":
Seagate 4TB: 0.85A: ST4000LM024
USB HDD 2.5":
WD Blue 4TB: 0.39A: WD40NMZW-11GX6S1

Interface extension cards:
to follow