average power of a 500GB sata2 hd

[matz]

hi guys

whats the average power a 500GB sata2 hd would take,

thanks i might be planning to add one in the future

[system7]

Bigger drives are noisier because they have more platters and heads, but power consumption in general is about 10W, and a momentary 25W peak at spin-up.

Optical drives are only about 5W, so don't get too hot. :)

[matz]

omg thanks, i swear they were like the 2nd biggest power consumer. i must be wrong! thanks system 7

[PeteA]

It's not the size of the disk (storage that matters) its how they were disigned. Most disk drives these days have 3/4 disks in them and use pretty much the same motor and controller boards.

The most I ever heard a HDD using as far as wattage was around 40w but that was an extreme case. As system7 said 10w, 25w peak

[teknokid]

what about raptors?

[matz]

its best to keep them on a single rail? out of the 3 or 4 i have?

[teknokid]

nah, the rails adjust accordingly :)

[system7]

TechReport is always good on power consumption:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/10152/13

Those 10,000 rpm Raptors are better than I expected. :D

Traditionally, slower drives, like 4,200 and 5,400 rpm, use less power and produce less heat and noise, hence their use in Laptops and iPods. Of course, the first thing the numpties want to do is upgrade them to 7,200 rpm... :roll:

[matz]

what about DVDRW drives (optical drives if im right) are they the beasts that consume power?

[system7]

Opticals must have a highish consumtion at 52X speed, but that isn't much of the time. Even then it's probably not more than 15W for what I'd guess is 5,000 rpm. The edge of the platter is doing about 120 mph, which is why some old CDs fly apart.

There is a very amusing video somewhere on the net of a guy who used a high tech German 30,000 rpm electric drill to spin up CDs to see what happens. He reckoned he was getting close to Sonic Boom territory of 700 mph.

They flew off, shot up to the ceiling and exploded into a million pieces. He conducted subsequent experiments from behind the Sofa... :lol: