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The problem of power consumption and heat dissipation in modern computer components
does not need any special substantiations or introductions. It exists and should be
somehow dealt with. It's especially critical with the present-day processors and video
cards. But the object of this article is another computer element, critical to overheating —
hard disk drives (HDD). Manufacturers measure off quite a modest range of operating
temperatures — from +5 to +55°C as a rule (occasionally from 0 to +60°C), which is
obviously less than in case of processors, video cards, or chipsets. Moreover, reliability
and durability of these drives depends much on their operating temperatures. According
to our research, increasing HDD temperature by 5°C has the same effect on reliability as
switching from 10% to 100% HDD workload! Each one-degree drop of HDD temperature
is equivalent to a 10% increase of HDD service life.
It goes without saying that servers and professional data storage systems pay special
attention to cooling hard drives — drives are installed into special metal cages and cooled
by fans. In such cages the HDD temperature stays within 30-40°C even under heavy load
(sometimes it's even close to the environment temperature), which drives away all
overheating concerns.

www.tradus.in/Pen

Latest Revie

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 2 of 23

Latest News
Jan 03, 2011

Dec 14, 2010

Nov 23, 2010

Nov 16, 2010

However, much less attention is paid to the problem of HDD cooling in more consumer-
like cases, including personal computers (from hardware integrators or self-assembled), Nov 16, 2010
workstations, and even entry-level servers, to say nothing of growing increasingly popular
"computerized" consumer electronics with hard drives inside (play stations, personal
Nov 16, 2010
digital video recorders, etc). That's partially due to lower requirements to data storage
reliability, partially due to economic reasons, and also because any additional fan makes a Nov 02, 2010
device noisier, which is very undesirable. The following two components grow especially
important under these conditions:
1. Construction of HDD mounting in a case (relative to other active cooling systems, main
airflows inside the case, and passive surfaces that channel the heat away relatively
well — metal chassis); but still, our article does not deal with that issue, to be more
exact it deals with a slightly different thing.
2. Heat dissipation of drives in various operating modes. That's what our article is about.

I hope there is no need to explain why the heat dissipation of a drive matches its power
consumption from a PSU almost perfectly: if we dismiss minute mechanical work,
performed by some ill-balanced storage devices by vibrating themselves and the
neighbourhood (where they are installed), as well as the power of acoustic and
electromagnetic (radio-frequency range) vibrations generated by the operating disk, there
are no other ways the drive can transmit energy outside, except for the thermal form.
And the only power source of a drive is electricity (we shall reasonably ignore heating
from external sources so far ;)). That is we face a classic "electric oven" of a hard drive
(the same also applies to a processor — CPU or GPU), it will interest us in this article only
in this respect. :)

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 3 of 23

HDD Temperature Reading Mumbo Jumbo

GE's Nucleus
Some users are too naive to think that all they need to understand everything about heat Make more
dissipation of a drive is to measure temperature of the drive during its operations or energy choices
tests. They think that if they compare several hard disks by this temperature measured GE's communi
under domestic conditions, they could draw profound conclusions that one disk is cooler device.
www.ecomaginatio
than the other, that is better and dissipate less heat. Several authors of HDD reviews
even base their statistics on it, mistaking its validity and relation to the realities of life. Powervault S
Their readers buy a reviewed hard drive and expect it to keep below 42°C or, say, 47°C Tape
— that's because "computer gurus" reviewed it… Get
Why is it a delusion? Because taking correct readings, that is trying to judge about hard Data Protectio
drive's heat consumption by its temperature, all the more to determine the real operating PowerVault St
temperature of a given hard drive compared to other drives, requires at least knowing the Dell!
www.Dell.com/IN/
ropes or helluva onions. :)
Figo
That is to ensure accuracy and validity of temperature readings with the measurement Hatchback
error within at least 1-2°C, you must put hard drives into a heat chamber, provide similar Recognized as
heat dissipation conditions (chassis mounting, air circulation), and read the temperature Indian Car of t
by an external sensor (that is not by the built-in one) at least at several surface points 2011. Test Dri
(temperatures inside hard drives can be interesting to only manufacturers, so we shall Experience
not analyze them). You must agree that organizing such measurements on a system www.india.ford.com
basis even under conditions of a regular computer testlab is problematic at best — it
requires special expensive equipment, rare labs can afford. Otherwise, the measurement Ide Hard Driv
error of all makeshift readings under improvised conditions or "system units" will be Compare Price
minimum 10°C, which reminds the notorious "average temperature in a hospital". Save
Furthermore, under these conditions you shouldn't try to compare temperatures of Top Deals on I
various drives, differing by 2-5°C. It's utterly useless and even harmful, because it Hard Drives.
Quikr.com/Compu
misleads credulous readers!
Moreover, if you possess a good heat chamber and other accessories to take correct Old Laptops
temperature readings, the results obtained will also be useless to some extent for those Pune
who want to know what real temperature their hard drives will reach! That's because real All
systems channel heat absolutely differently and it cannot be calculated in detail. Laptop @Best
Conclusion: you'll have to put a given system unit into a large heat chamber (with Buy Sale Upgr
specified airflow conditions) and take readings. If you risk taking these readings outside a Exchange9372
www.acsinfotech.n
heat chamber in a regular room, a large measurement error due to the drift of room
temperature and local airflows will bring to nought the idea of such experiments.
However, even if you manage to take these readings, you will not be able to tell for sure Useful Links
that the operating temperature of this drive will be the same in a different chassis,
Computer Memo
because systems may have quite significant differences in HDD cooling conditions.
Apple Memory U
Another question — what can be used to measure HDD temperature (if you still want to
measure it ;)). It goes without saying that readings of the built-in sensor are absolutely Software to
unreliable! Yep, this thermal sensor may roughly guide you in everyday "consumer"
practice (e.g., in order to be sure that your drive is not overheated above the safe limit),
but these readings cannot be used to compare different storage devices! The fact is that
different models have built-in thermal sensors in different locations so that they measure
temperatures of totally different parts, which may have different operating temperatures
— even in the same drive in different operating modes! Unfortunately, there is no
common industry standard on this issue so far. So, if you are still keen on being informed
on the real temperature of the hard drive case (specifications usually limit this very
characteristic) and, all the more, comparing various drives by their case operating
temperatures, you should use an external thermometer of the proper accuracy class.

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 4 of 23

Power consumption is the "correct" unit of heat dissipation

But enough of measuring temperatures — we are absolutely not going to do it in this

review. :) That's because we shall take power consumption for their heat dissipation
measure (see above). Moreover, power consumption turns out a much more flexible
characteristic in this respect, because it allows to quickly obtain precise data on heat
dissipation of a drive operating in various modes (from idle to seek, read, and write),
which would have been problematic by reading temperatures. Moreover, you cannot use
temperatures to measure for example start-up power consumption. Besides, it's much
easier to measure power consumption than to read temperatures with a given degree of
accuracy.
Thus, the most correct measure of hard drive heating is the electric power it consumes.
But power consumption of hard drives is also important for us because power saving in
modern computers is becoming an issue of primary concern. Power consumption of
processors and video cards is growing, a couple of dozens of Watts in a hard drive against
these nearly-hundred-Watt ovens does not seem so critical. But it depends: in case of a
low end PSU (250-300 W), an additional hard drive (or even the simplest RAID) may
result in the necessity to upgrade a power supply unit to a more powerful one. Besides,
no one abolished the problem of high start-up power consumption – for example, the
plain Barracuda 7200.8 may draw up to 2.5A from the +12 V line at start-up. Add 3 W
drawn from +5 V to get the peak start-up power consumption of 33 W! What if there are
two or three such drives in a system? In this case you should play safe and take a PSU at
least by 100-150 W more powerful than processor+video+motherboard require. Food for
thought.
So, the object of today's review is to compare power consumption and heat dissipation of
modern 3.5-inch hard drives in various operating modes. We shall mostly review desktop
models with Serial ATA and UltraATA interfaces, as the most interesting to the majority of
our readers. But we'll also include some recent SCSI models as a reference.

Hard Drives' Specifications

As a reference, Table 1 contains power consumption data for the main HDD series,
provided in their specifications. We shall start from the beginning. :)
Table 1. Power consumption (W) of 3.5-inch ATA hard drives of the latest
generations in various modes (according to their specifications).

Series Idle Seek Read Write Start-Up

30
Hitachi Deskstar 7K400 9.0 (pata) / 9.6(sata) - - -
(2A@12V)
5-7 (pata) / 5.6-7.6
24
Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 (sata) (depending on - - -
(1.7A@12V)
capacity)
5.0-7.0 (depending 28
Hitachi Deskstar 180GXP - - -
on capacity) (2A@12V)
6.7 (sata) / 6.3
Maxtor MaXLine III - - - -
(pata)
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 7.6 - - - -

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 5 of 23

Maxtor MaXLine Plus II 8.8 12.6 - - -

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus
7.35 12.2 - - -
9
Samsung SpinPoint P120
7.5 9.5 - - -
SATA
Samsung SpinPoint P120
7.0 9.0 - - -
UATA
Samsung SpinPoint P80 7.0 8.6 - - -
Seagate Barracuda
7.2 12.4 12.8 - -
7200.8
Seagate Barracuda
7.5 12.5 12.0 - -
7200.7 and 7200.7 Plus
Seagate Barracuda ATA
9.5 13.0 12.0 - -
V
Seagate Cheetah 15K.4 8.0-12.0 (depending 13.5-17.5 (depending
-
U320 SCSI on capacity) on capacity)
Seagate Cheetah 10K.7 6.8-10.1 (depending 11.7-16.4 (depending
-
U320 SCSI on capacity) on capacity)
Seagate Savvio 10K.1
4,8-5,1 8.1 -
U320 SCSI
Western Digital Caviar
8.75 - 9.0 9.0 -
SE WD3200JD SATA
Western Digital Caviar
8.1 - 8.6 8.6 -
SE WD3200JB UATA
Western Digital Caviar
SE WD2500JD/JB 8.8 - 12.5 12.5 -
(80GB/platter)
Western Digital Caviar
8.75 - 9.5 9.5 -
RE WDxx00SD SATA
Western Digital Raptor
WD740GD and 7.9 - 8.4 8.4 -
WD360GD
Irregardless of specifications, you should be well aware that they are not a panacea and
cannot provide complete facts of life: sometimes manufacturers specify only upper limits,
sometimes – typical values, sometimes these figures have nothing to do with reality, if
you compare them with the readings taken from these drives. Nevertheless, specifications
exist and we should face them.
Another funny delusion - users often consult cases of a hard drive and fondly believe that
the power consumption data printed there is true for a given sample of a hard drive ("this
data is printed there for a reason!" ;)). Having compared these parameters with real
figures, you will see that it's often not the case. Moreover, these parameters often
mismatch even the specifications on these drives. It's often not so easy to understand the
principles, which manufacturers follow to mark technical parameters of drives on their
cases.

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Contenders and Test Methods

We have tested 35 models of modern 3.5-inch hard drives from all major manufacturers.
The drives are listed in the table with test results below. We used the following testbed
configuration to measure power consumption of hard disks:
1. CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3.0C
2. Gigabyte GA-8KNXP Ultra-64 motherboard based on Intel E7210 chipset (the i875P
with Hance Rapids 6300ESB southbridge and PCI-X bus)
3. RAM: 2x256 MB DDR400 (2.5-3-3-6 timings)
4. Ultra320 SCSI Adaptec AIC-7902B controller on PCI64 bus
5. The main hard drive: Maxtor 6E040L0
6. Power supply: Zalman ZM400A-APF, 400W
7. Chassis: Arbyte YY-W201BK-A

We measured the power consumption of hard drives in various modes: Idle, ATA or SCSI
Bus Transfer, Read, Write, Seek, Quiet Seek (additionally, if supported), as well as Start.
A package of these parameters renders the situation with HDD heating (a product of
current and voltage gives the heat rate dissipated by a drive) as well as with its economy
in the most complete way. Operating modes of a hard drive were controlled by the
corresponding tests in AIDA 32 Disk Benchmark, read and write modes were measured
"in the beginning" of a disk (on the most frequently used outer tracks; power
consumption on inner tracks is usually lower). The tests were carried out under MS
Windows XP Professional SP2. The hard drives were tested non-partitioned. Before the
tests, we warmed the hard disks for 20 minutes using a utility with active random access.
We measured the +5 V and +12 V draw (accurate voltages at the output of the above
mentioned unit were +5.08 V and +11.82 V) simultaneously with two digital ammeters of
the 1.5 accuracy class with the resistance below 0.15 ohm (including the leads'
resistance). The refresh rate of readings was approximately 0.3-0.4 sec. The table
provides average values for several seconds (current fluctuations usually didn't exceed
30 mA), except for the Start-Up current (the table contains maximum values).

Test results

Our readings are published in Table 2. The last column contains the data specified on a
case of a hard drive.
Table 2. Current drain (mA) of hard drives in various modes.

Information
Quiet Start
HDD V Idle ATA Seek Read Write on the HDD
Seek -Up
case
Hitachi Deskstar 5 360 400 690 690 1040 960 610 500
7K250 250GB
SATA 12 380 380 740 470 380 380 1300 700

Hitachi Deskstar 5 460 530 830 - 1250 910 670 780

7K400 400GB
SATA 12 480 480 880 - 480 480 1200 980

5 330 410 700 - 1100 890 450 780

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 7 of 23

Hitachi Deskstar
7K400 400GB 12 480 480 870 - 480 480 1250 980
UATA
Maxtor MaXLine 5 560 780 760 750 990 1000 710 n/a
III 7B250S0
SATA 12 400 440 790 550 440 440 1420 n/a

Maxtor MaXLine 5 550 730 800 - 1130 1070 700 740

III 7B300S0
SATA 12 440 490 820 - 490 490 1400 1520

Maxtor MaXLine 5 430 590 640 - 960 920 700 740

III 7B300R0
UATA 12 450 500 800 - 500 500 1300 1520

Maxtor 5 445 520 - 540 850 860 540 740

DiamondMax 10
6B300R0 UATA 12 405 460 - 550 460 460 1350 1520

Maxtor 5 430 500 560 530 830 840 520 740

DiamondMax 10
6B200P0 UATA 12 300 340 660 430 340 340 1320 1280

Maxtor 5 550 720 800 - 1150 1080 700 740

DiamondMax 10
6B200M0 SATA 12 380 420 750 - 420 420 1400 1280

Maxtor 5 770 850 840 820 1190 1010 760 670

DiamondMax Plus
9 6Y120M0 SATA 12 370 370 700 500 370 370 1300 960

Maxtor 5 680 730 740 - 1100 940 670 670

DiamondMax Plus
9 6Y120P0 UATA 12 380 380 680 - 380 380 1350 960

Samsung 5 550 630 630 620 850 630 550 600

SpinPoint P80
SP1614C SATA 12 350 350 550 480 350 400 1660 500

Samsung 5 440 520 510 - 740 500 450 600

SpinPoint P80
SP1614N UATA 12 350 350 540 - 350 400 1450 500

Samsung 5 585 620 630 620 830 900 590 700

SpinPoint P120
SP2004C SATA 12 330 330 570 480 330 330 1650 500

Samsung 5 500 530 530 530 700 780 500 600

SpinPoint P120
SP2014N UATA 12 320 320 540 450 320 320 1600 500

Seagate 5 450 480 500 - 770 950 570 460

Barracuda 7200.8
400GB SATA,
disk 1 12 450 450 660 - 450 450 2200 560

Seagate 5 500 510 550 - 820 970 600 460

Barracuda 7200.8
400GB SATA,
disk 2 12 440 440 630 - 440 440 2280 560

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 8 of 23

Seagate 5 330 380 380 - 650 840 450 460

Barracuda 7200.8
400GB UATA 12 440 440 650 - 440 440 2200 560

Seagate 5 460 480 510 - 770 930 590 460

Barracuda 7200.8
300GB SATA 12 450 450 660 - 450 450 2250 560

Seagate 5 340 360 400 - 710 830 450 460

Barracuda 7200.8
250GB UATA 12 390 390 590 - 390 390 2250 560

Seagate 5 480 490 520 - 820 950 560 460

Barracuda 7200.8
200GB SATA 12 360 360 560 - 360 360 2260 560

Seagate 5 410 680 550 - 1190 820 630 720

Barracuda 7200.7
Plus 200GB UATA 12 330 330 610 - 330 330 1220 350

Seagate 5 670 890 800 - 1360 1080 850 650

Barracuda 7200.7
Plus 160GB SATA 12 350 350 790 - 350 350 1200 370

Seagate 5 740 830 780 - 1040 990 800 650

Barracuda ATA V
120GB SATA 12 400 400 810 - 400 400 1450 370

Seagate Cheetah 5 780 900 680 - 1030 1120 760 800

15K.4 147GB
U320 SCSI 12 790 800 1250 - 800 800 1600 1200

Seagate Cheetah 5 500 850 950 - 1100 990 700 800

10K.7 74GB
U320 SCSI, disk
1 12 360 360 660 - 360 360 1230 800

Seagate Cheetah 5 510 860 950 - 1100 990 710 800

10K.7 74GB
U320 SCSI, disk
2 12 360 360 660 - 360 360 1200 800

Seagate Savvio 5 450 810 620 - 840 900 630 800

10K.1 73GB
U320 SCSI 12 190 190 510 - 190 190 1200 500

Western Digital 5 490 550 510 510 760 810 520 650
Caviar SE
WD3200JD SATA 12 370 370 620 500 370 370 1300 900

Western Digital 5 370 420 390 390 640 700 500 650
Caviar SE
WD3200JB UATA 12 370 370 600 510 370 370 1350 900

Western Digital 5 470 510 550 550 700 700 540 920
Caviar SE
WD2500JD SATA 12 350 350 620 400 350 350 1150 900

Western Digital 5 350 390 420 420 580 580 400 650
Caviar SE
WD2500JB UATA 12 360 360 620 420 360 360 1220 900

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 9 of 23

Western Digital 5 470 510 490 - 700 700 510 920

Caviar RE
WD1200SD SATA 12 290 290 600 - 300 300 1190 900

Western Digital 5 510 550 640 640 770 770 520 700
Raptor WD740GD 12 380 380 690 690 380 380 1670 750

Western Digital 5 760 800 960 - 1280 1040 930 930

Raptor WD360GD 12 300 310 630 - 310 310 1550 750
The table holds a lot of numbers and there seems no point in commenting them all —
they are self explanatory. However, we have a comment to the table with results - the
Samsung SP2004C hard disk supporting SATA II interface (its transfer rate is doubled to
3 Gbit/s) was also tested connected to Silicon Image SiI3124-2 controller that supports
this new interface. The results are quite expectable — its power consumption remained
the same from +12 V line and grew by 20-40 mA from +5 V line (compared to its
connection to ICH5 SATA 1.5 Gbit/s) in data transfer modes (+40 mA in Read mode,
+30 mA in Bus transfer mode, +20 mA in Seek mode). Thus, a faster interface (SATA II)
will hardly provide real performance gain to your data storage system so far, but it will
contribute to its heating (by 0.1-0.2 W).
But if you connect a SATA 1.0 hard disk with NCQ support to the SiI3124 controller (we
carried out this experiment with Maxtor MaXLine III 7B250S0), in order to see whether
NCQ support has an effect on power consumption of hard disks, you will see that the
current remains the same in all the modes mentioned (we haven't evaluated possible
average power savings due to a faster execution of same tasks). The only exception is
Idle mode, when the current was much higher than in case of the ICH5 controller
(720 mA versus 560 mA from +5 V and 440 mA versus 400 mA from +12 V) — in this
case the SiI3124 host seemed not to be able to cooperate with the drive electronics (or
vice versa?) in terms of using power saving modes during pauses between storage
access.
A separate mention should be made of the fact that if we compare "identical" hard drives,
equipped with different interfaces — Serial ATA and UltraATA — the serial interface turns
out much more power consuming than the parallel one! Indeed, the interface difference
costs Hitachi Deskstar 7K400 about 130 mA along the +5 V line (it's almost 0.7 W,
dissipated by the hard disk controller alone!), Serial ATA expenses of the Maxtor MaXLine
III 7B300S/R0 grow to 150 mA (nearly 0.8 W), Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6B200M/P0 -
over 200 mA (more than one Watt!) Even in case of the "old" Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9
6Y120M/P0 the difference of 100-120 mA does not seem that harmless. Samsung spends
about 100 mA on SATA, Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 — average 150 mA (this figure varies
from disk to disk). However, Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Plus used to draw even more —
200-250 mA! Even WD Caviar SE drives, well known for their economical efficiency, draw
about 120 mA from the +5 V line to support Serial ATA. The following diagram is more
illustrative, it contains drive power consumption values from +5 V supply voltage (only)
in host transfer mode (no access to platters). The drives are grouped here by series.

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 10 of 23

Host Transfer Drive Power Consumption, Supply Voltage +5 V

The conclusion is clear: if you are still sure that SATA drives are faster than their
counterparts with parallel interface, be ready to provide an extra Watt (or even more,
taking into account a host controller) per each SATA drive. :) It's a trifle in comparison
with 100 W of a powerful processor, but if your system is more efficient and you try to
make it maximum quiet by using every opportunity to reduce power consumption, the
array of SATA drives is not for you. Even considering the general heat dissipation of such
drives, SATA usage increases it by up to 10% or more!

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 11 of 23

Speaking of how the specifications stand to our measurements, the picture is rather odd.
Some figures are similar, the others are noticeably different (it's more convenient to
compare Table 1 with Table 3 below).
Speaking of the correlation between power consumption values specified on hard disks
with real values measured in various modes - total dissonance! You can try and guess for
yourselves what each manufacturer meant by these figures. :) For example, 5 V marked
on a Hitachi drive is evidently lower than the voltage demonstrated in Seek, Read, and
Write modes, while 12 V "covers" these operations with a safe margin and is lower only
than the Start-Up current. 12 V in the new Maxtor drives covers even the real start-up
current, but their 5 V is obviously lower than the real values for reading and writing. I can
only assume that the values marked on some Seagate and Samsung drives correspond to
the maximum current in Idle mode (that's rather far-fetched). But tell me please who
needs these values? Power consumptions marked on most drives does not depend on the
model (whether it's SATA or UATA). That's also wrong. To put it simply, you cannot trust
the figures marked on hard disks. In fact they are useless and even harmful as they
misinform users! :( Moreover, you cannot use them to judge about the real heat
dissipation of storage devices!
Interesting conclusions can be drawn from the comparison of power consumptions of hard
disks within the same series but with different number of platters. For example, the
+12 V draw in Hitachi Travelstar has grown only by a quarter (disproportionate to the
number of platters) from three (in the 7K250) to five platters (in the 7K400). But when
the Maxtor DiamondMax 10 (UATA/133) has switched from 200GB to 300GB (2 and 3
platters), the power consumption has grown by 35% (almost proportional to the number
of platters, but in this case we were surprised by a high spinup current in the SATA
6B200M0 model). What concerns Seagate Barracuda 7200.8, 400GB and 300GB models
have almost the same current drain from +12V line (the power consumption of the
300GB model is a tad higher), while their younger sisters (200GB and 250GB models)
consume less power by ~20%. Thus we can draw a conclusion that the 300GB model has
three platters and the 250GB model - only two. By the way, the +12 V draw in the 2.5-
inch SCSI Seagate Savvio 10K.1 turns out much lower not only in comparison with the
Seagate Cheetah 10K.7, but also compared to all (!) modern desktop ATA hard disks.
What concerns power and heat saving in Quiet Seek mode (instead of regular Fast Seek
mode), it shows only in active random seek mode (there is no difference in other modes)
and concerns mostly the current on the +12 V line (lower current is used for "profile"
positioning of brackets with heads). The power saving amounts to 3.2 W for Hitachi
Deskstar 7K250, 2.8-2.9 W for modern Maxtor hard disks (and 2.4 W for two-platter
DiamondMax Plus 9), about one Watt for Samsung SpinPoint P80 and P120 (their seek
time actually changes very little), the same one Watt for WD3200JD/B and 2.5 W for
WD2500JD/B from the previous series (with 80GB platters). It's up to you to decide
whether the game is worth the candle, as this significant power saving (up to 3 W) will be
noticeable only in specific tasks with active frequent seeks across the entire disk (like
server loads), which suffer from slower seeks. However, considering that modern ATA
disks practically don't lose any performance in Quiet Seek mode at the majority of typical
"desktop" tasks (probably except for active swapping, if the system has insufficient
memory), switching such hard disks to the Quiet Seek mode will do only good — they will
become quieter and even a tad cooler. :) That's how I prefer using them.

Start-Up current

A separate mention should be made of the start-up current in hard disks. It keeps within
500-700 mA on the +5 V line (except for WD Raptor from the first generation with

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 12 of 23

930 mA and old Barracudas with 800-850 mA). But the main load certainly falls on the
+12 V line, where peak currents (average for tenths of a second) reach 1.5-2 A. The
easiest (towards a PSU at spinup) hard disks are Hitachi Deskstar 7K250/7K400, WD
Caviar SE and RE (the +12 V start-up draw is below 1300 mA), as well as Seagate
Barracuda 7200.7 Plus (about 1200 mA). However, all 7200.8 models from Maxtor of the
last two generations also blend in with the list of "easy-going" hard disks with 1.3-1.4A
start-up power. Samsung SpinPoint P80 and P120 (up to 1660 mA) and WD Raprot
WD740GD/ WD360GD (about 1600 mA) are a tad worse in this respect, though even they
look as good as pies in comparison with the voracious Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 (of all
capacities and interfaces) requiring to draw 2.2-2.3 A from the +12 V line at start-up. I
don't know why Seagate doubled the start-up current compared to its desktop models of
the previous generations. But the sad fact remains - it is out of all notch compared to all
the other modern desktop hard disks and even to high-performance SCSI hard disks from
Seagate.
By the way, the latest Seagate 10K.7 and even 15K.4 SCSI hard disks would appear not
so ugly in terms of start-up current: 1200 mA for one- or two-platter 10K.7 hard disks
and just 1.6 A for the senior four-platter 15K.4 model — these are quite sparing
parameters! It's quite easy to explain — the start-up current of Seagate SCSI hard disks
is spread over quite a long period of time (they spin up for 10 seconds or more, when the
start-up current is limited by electronics of a hard disk at a specified level), while most
ATA models spin up much faster and their start-up current graph resembles a steep
impulse with falling tilt rather than a long plateau. The hard disks on the next diagram
are listed in the order of their maximum start-up power consumption.

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 13 of 23

Hard Drive Maximum Start-Up Power.

Heat dissipation of the drives.

Current drains (especially on both power supply lines) are actually not very illustrative as
far as heat dissipation is concerned. So we shall use them to calculate power consumption
for each operating mode (see Table 3). Of course, the power in this case is calculated
with regard to a voltage drop on the internal resistance of ammeters in power supply

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lines, that is it corresponds to this very case. The power may be slightly different with
other voltages.
Table 3. Power consumption and heat dissipation (W) of hard drives in various
modes.

Quiet Start-
HDD Idle ATA Seek Read Write
Seek Up
Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 250GB
6.29 6.49 12.15 8.99 9.65 9.26 18.26
SATA
Hitachi Deskstar 7K400 400GB
7.97 8.31 14.47 - 11.84 10.19 17.40
SATA
Hitachi Deskstar 7K400 400GB
7.32 7.72 13.71 - 11.12 10.09 16.88
UATA
Maxtor MaXLine III 7B250S0
7.53 9.08 13.08 10.22 10.11 10.16 20.14
SATA
Maxtor MaXLine III 7B300S0
7.95 9.42 13.63 - 11.38 11.09 19.86
SATA
Maxtor MaXLine III 7B300R0
7.46 8.85 12.60 - 10.67 10.47 18.70
UATA
Maxtor DiamondMax 10
7.01 8.03 - 9.18 9.66 9.71 18.49
6B300R0 UATA
Maxtor DiamondMax 10
5.70 6.52 10.57 7.73 8.15 8.20 18.04
6B200P0 UATA
Maxtor DiamondMax 10
7.24 8.55 12.81 - 10.66 10.32 19.86
6B200M0 SATA
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9
8.21 8.61 12.42 9.98 10.26 9.39 19.00
6Y120M0 SATA
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9
7.89 8.13 11.70 - 9.94 9.16 19.13
6Y120P0 UATA
Samsung SpinPoint P80
6.89 7.29 9.63 8.76 8.37 7.87 22.11
SP1614C SATA
Samsung SpinPoint P80
6.34 6.74 8.92 - 7.83 7.23 19.19
SP1614N UATA
Samsung SpinPoint P120
6.83 7.00 9.87 8.76 8.04 8.38 22.19
SP2004C SATA
Samsung SpinPoint P120
6.29 6.44 9.02 7.96 7.28 7.67 21.17
SP2014N UATA
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8
7.56 7.71 10.27 - 9.15 10.03 28.38
400GB SATA, disk 1
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8
7.70 7.75 10.17 - 9.28 10.01 29.44
400GB SATA, disk 2
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8
6.85 7.10 9.56 - 8.44 9.38 27.79
400GB UATA

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Seagate Barracuda 7200.8

7.61 7.71 10.32 - 9.15 9.94 29.05
300GB SATA
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8
6.31 6.41 8.95 - 8.15 8.74 28.35
250GB UATA
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8
6.66 6.71 9.20 - 8.34 8.98 29.02
200GB SATA
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Plus
5.96 7.30 9.94 - 9.79 7.99 17.43
200GB UATA
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Plus
7.48 8.57 13.28 - 10.85 9.49 18.29
160GB SATA
Seagate Barracuda ATA V 120GB
8.42 8.86 13.41 - 9.89 9.64 20.93
SATA
Seagate Cheetah 15K.4 147GB
13.2 13.88 18.03 - 14.52 14.96 22.46
U320 SCSI
Seagate Cheetah 10K.7 74GB
6.76 8.49 12.49 - 9.71 9.17 17.89
U320 SCSI, disk 1
Seagate Cheetah 10K.7 74GB
6.81 8.54 12.49 - 9.71 9.17 17.60
U320 SCSI, disk 2
Seagate Savvio 10K.1 73GB
4.51 6.29 9.11 - 6.44 6.73 17.20
U320 SCSI
Western Digital Caviar SE
6.82 7.12 9.85 8.45 8.16 8.41 17.81
WD3200JD SATA
Western Digital Caviar SE
6.23 6.48 9.02 7.97 7.57 7.87 18.29
WD3200JB UATA
Western Digital Caviar SE
6.49 6.69 10.05 7.48 7.63 7.63 16.17
WD2500JD SATA
Western Digital Caviar SE
6.01 6.21 9.41 7.06 7.16 7.16 16.29
WD2500JB UATA
Western Digital Caviar RE
5.78 5.98 9.52 - 7.04 7.04 16.49
WD1200SD SATA
Western Digital Raptor
7.04 7.24 11.32 11.32 8.33 8.33 22.08
WD740GD
Western Digital Raptor
7.34 7.65 12.19 - 9.99 8.83 22.72
WD360GD
In addition to the above said about the increased SATA power consumption and possible
power saving on Quiet Seek, we can note that the 2.5-inch SCSI Seagate Savvio 10K.1
demonstrates surprisingly low power consumption in Idle mode — bravo! The best 3.5-
inch models in this respect are many WD Caviar SE hard disks and some ATA models
from Maxtor, Seagate, Samsung, and Hitachi, as well as the Seagate SCSI Cheetah
10K.7.

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Hard Drive Typical Idle Power.

Here is a list of hard disks in order of their power consumption and heat dissipation in
active Seek mode:

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Hard Drive Average Seek Power.

And again ATA hard disks from Samsung and WD are a tad better than their competitors
(by the way, the same picture was demonstrated by notebook models from these
manufacturers, see our review). However, some Seagate models also look good, while
Maxtor and Hitachi cannot boast of the economic seek mode. But you should keep in mind
that they feature the highest power saving in Quiet Seek mode (within 3 W). So they
have every prospect of success in the total leadership competition, their power
consumption in this mode being reduced to 8-9 W!

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 18 of 23

It's also interesting that the WD Raptor WD740GD divides the list of hard disks in both
categories (Idle and Seek) in equal halves. So this hard disk turned out not that power
hungry and hot — even compared to many slower (less efficient) competitors.
In order to reduce the figures from Table 3 to common simpler and more useful
denominator, we calculated two parameters, useful in practice: average power
consumption of hard disks during typical user operations and during intensive (constant)
HDD operations. To calculate these benchmark characteristics, which actually do not
claim to be some indisputable truth, I used two typical usage models of hard disks:
1. Model of the average hard disk power consumption for typical unhurried operations of
a user (for example, office work or editing graphics) can be described by the following
formula:
P typ =( Idle *90%+ Write *2.5%+ Read *7.5%)/100%,
where lettered modes denote the power consumption of a drive from both voltage
sources in the corresponding modes; digits (multipliers for these power values) denote
percentage of the HDD mode duration (we take maximum power consumption values for
reading and writing, which correspond to the beginning zones of a disk; Seek mode is
actually metered here through reading and writing). This model is based on the
assumption that read/write HDD operations make up 10% of the total time for the typical
desktop usage.
2. The average power consumption during intensive hard disk operations (for example,
defragmenting disks, scanning the surface, copying files, checking files for viruses in the
background, etc) can be defined by the following formula:
P max =(Write + Seek + Read *3)/5
Calculated power consumptions are used to plot the following diagrams.

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 19 of 23

Typical Desktop Drive Power Consumption.

These results are evidently close to the alignment of forces in the Idle mode — the most
economic hard drives consume just 5-6W in this mode, the coolest hard disks are WD
Caviar SE and Samsung SpinPoint, though some models from other manufacturers are
also very economic. Theoretically, the gap between the winners (if we don't take into
account Savvio and Cheetah 15K.4) and "the losers" is not that large here — 6 W and
8.5 W. Power consumption of the majority of ATA hard disks is about 7 W ± 0.8 W. That's
why the difference in operating temperatures under the same cooling conditions will be
just a couple of degrees. We can also note that the largest power consumption is
demonstrated by ATA hard disks from Maxtor and Seagate of the previous generations,
that is the efficiency of the latest generation is obviously better.

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 20 of 23

The mean power consumption of hard disks under intensive (constant) load is shown
below:

Intensive Drive Use Power Consumption

Again you can see that WD Caviar and Samsung ATA hard disks are noticeably "cooler"
than those from other manufacturers, even the WD Raptor WD740GD has gone up to the
middle of the list! Hard disks from Seagate, Maxtor, and Hitachi are generally "hotter" by
a couple of Watts, though much depends on a given model and you may find economic
models even among them. Heat dissipation of ATA hard disks under intensive load keeps
within 7.5-12 W, the average value is about 10 W. That's what power you should keep in
mind when you choose a cooling system for single hard disks inside a PC case.

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 21 of 23

Theoretically, this data agrees well with the read/write/seek power consumptions
published in the specifications.

Conclusion

In fact, all main conclusions from our experiments on measuring power consumption and
heat dissipation of modern 3.5-inch hard drives have already been drawn in the body of
the article, so we can only add the following:
1. Measuring power consumption is a convenient and powerful tool to evaluate heat
dissipation of hard drives in various operating modes, which can provide an attentive
experimentalist with a lot of additional useful information.
2. Regard temperature evaluations of HDD heat dissipation (and operating temperature
conditions) with great care. You shouldn't decide whether to install an active or passive
HDD cooling system relying on other people's temperature measurements (no matter how
competent they are) of a given model or series, you can trust only your personal
experiments with your sample installed in your system environment.
3. Specifications on power consumption of a hard disk or, moreover, this data printed on
an HDD case should be taken critically. They will seldom give you an idea of the true
power consumption and heat dissipation of hard disks! You'd better trust the reality
perceived through your senses.
4. Heat dissipation of desktop hard disks has been steadily going down of late, though the
appearance of fashionable serial interfaces (SATA 1.0 and SATA II) obviously does not
make for it. At the same time, Quiet Seek mode can sometimes reduce heat dissipation of
a hard disk much lower than it is increased by using the SATA interface.
5. In some cases you should pay special attention to providing proper load that does not
exceed PSU capacities, when hard disks spin up — it even concerns some modern ATA
models, especially hard disk arrays.
6. Some modern high-performance SCSI hard disks are very mild in terms of heat
dissipation, they can even compete with desktop ATA models and sometimes can operate
only with passive cooling. Seagate Savvio 10K.1 turned out the most economic model
among the high performance hard disks, having outperformed even all 3.5-inch ATA hard
disks!

Alex Karabuto (lx@ixbt.com)

July 11, 2005.

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 22 of 23

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Echo 2 Items Admin

Anonymous
Hi Alex,
This is a great write up.

If only 4 years latter the new hard disk drives out today (2009) could be compared like the ones here.

As power consumption is becoming more "noticeable" Organizations, Corporate Businesses and the general public
are seeking for the "Green" alternative components, without to much of a performance hit.

t.i.e.
Critter.
Saturday, February 14, 2009, 5:50:43 AM – Flag – Reply

Rizwan Hirani
Hi There,
Good Artical,

Any Idea How I can accomodate Power consumption of the SATA 2.5" HDD in 1.5Watt. ??

Any Idea about availability of SATA 2.5" HDD operating at industrial temperature grade ??
I have seen many HDD all has start Power required is very high.. I have'n that much Power availabel any

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HDD Diet: Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation Page 23 of 23

Idea How I can reduce that Power ??

Best Regards,
RH
Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 11:25:34 AM – Flag – Reply

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