SSDs may increase battery life

Author: Gareth Halfacree
Published: 7th July 2008
Comments (13) Stumble
Two conflicting reports on the same subject - do SSDs help or hinder your laptop's battery life?

Two conflicting reports on the same subject - do SSDs help or hinder your laptop's battery life?

If you read the recent article over on Tom's Hardware revealing that solid-state storage devices can actually reduce your battery life, then you'll probably want to read Laptop Magazine's take on the whole thing before ditching your SSD plans altogether.

Back in June Tom's Hardware contributors Patrick Schmid and Achim Roos ran a group test of SSDs against traditional mechanical hard disks, and came to a surprising conclusion – due to the higher idle power usage, SSDs can actually reduce battery life when compared to traditional mechanical drives. Under first-page heading entitled “Could Tom's Hardware be Wrong?” the two researchers state that “our results are definitely correct.”

Before you start sounding the death knell for the SSD industry, however, another publication has a different take on the matter. Laptop Magazine has performed its own testing, and the results are pretty much the opposite of what Tom's Hardware found. Testing two SSDs – A Sandisk SATA 5000 32GB and a Samsung SATA II 64GB – against a Western Digital Scorpio Blue 250GB 2.5” mechanical drive, the team found that battery life with WiFi enabled was increased by ten minutes on both SSD models compared to the WD drive.

There are several possibilities for why this test came out so differently to the one performed by Tom's Hardware. First is the methodology: Laptop Magazine used “a simple Windows shell script that cycles through a series of 60 popular Web sites, loading each page and then pausing for thirty seconds to simulate a user reading the page.” Tom's Hardware, on the other hand, used the popular Mobile Mark – a test that harkens back to the days of mechanical hard drives, and may not properly simulate 'real world' usage compared to the web-browsing test. In fact, Laptop Magazine goes as far as suggesting that the higher-performance SSDs in Tom's tests – which got figures suggesting they might drop battery life by as much as an hour compared to traditional mechanical drives – were “penalized [sic] by Mobile Mark because they managed to do more work.”

While a ten-minute increase in battery life isn't quite the miracle that laptop users were hoping for, it's always worth remembering that we are currently comparing traditional drives that have had decades of refinements made to their power usage to brand-new SSDs that aren't as far along the sophistication curve. If the gap between the two is as close as ten minutes – in either direction – then it certainly gives me hope that my future laptop might last for an entire working day between charges.

Which methodology do you think was most sound – Tom's Hardware or Laptop Magazine? Do you think Tom's was convinced by traditional drive manufacturers to paint SSDs in a bad light, or has Laptop Magazine been nobbled by SSD makers with a lot to lose? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
Quote steveo_mcg 7th July 2008, 10:14
The Laptop Magazine seems to be a more "real world" test than the synthetic benchmarks that TH used and since for me real world performance is much more important in a laptop than its headline speed i'd be inclined to be more interested in the LM results.
Quote Flibblebot 7th July 2008, 10:28
While I found it interesting, the whole Tom's article seemed a little confrontational to me.

What both articles do show (albeit to different extents) is that SSDs aren't the panacea for low-power computing that everyone thought they would be - yet. After all, we're still in the first generation of devices, I'm sure there are huge advances still to be made, including introduction of a low-power idle mode.
Quote kenco_uk 7th July 2008, 10:50
Tom's Hardware reviews don't hold much water for me. There was a time they were scoffed at in the past due to their reviewing methods and I'm afraid it's left a bad stain not even CILLIT BANG(!!1shout) can remove.
Quote bowman 7th July 2008, 10:56
Tom's has declined quite a bit.

In any case, their results contradict common sense. Besides, SSDs are still too expensive for most people, and for me personally the laptop is not exactly the first place I spend the money. The complete lack of noise, the ostentatiously low heat generation and high access speeds and transfer rates makes me more inclined to buy one for my desktop once they get low enough.
Quote Paradigm Shifter 7th July 2008, 11:00
I'm sure Anandtech did a similar HDD/SSD head-to-head test, and came to the conclusion that in some scenarios SSDs improve battery life, and in others reduces battery life.

So it's pretty much 'pays your penny and has your pick' at the minute which 'truth' you want to believe.
Quote konsta 7th July 2008, 11:06
I just don't see the point in even beginning this evaluation and generalising it against a technology. It's the like the people who dismissed LCD monitors wholesale 10 years ago because the refresh rate wasn't up to CRT standards.
Quote Veles 7th July 2008, 11:55
That's not what interested me about SSDs really, I'm more interested in the performance side.
Quote Woodstock 7th July 2008, 12:39
Quote:
Originally Posted by Veles
That's not what interested me about SSDs really, I'm more interested in the performance side.

same, but i wouldnt complain about more battery life when on the go
Quote WildThing 7th July 2008, 12:40
I remember reading that article on Tom's Hardware and thinking "SSD's consume MORE power, WTF!" Thanks for clearing that up a bit. ;)
Quote leexgx 7th July 2008, 18:17
the Update Rate of LCD (20-40ms) was not very good at all untill recently (not talking about the refresh rate here), i still prefer my CRT over my 22in wide LCD monitor as i get not as much tearing on the screen, useing v sync is not realy an option as it adds an delay when paying games whats anoying

even if SSD uses more power the performace thay offer out way that loss even if there is any, TG reviews seem not so trust worthy any more dispoingt realy, do seem to do good ones but seem to not think some of the reviews tho
sola pannels been one of them that would of been better if thay use 1 more pannel + bigger bat
Quote Smilodon 7th July 2008, 18:53
Quote:
Originally Posted by leexgx
the Update Rate of LCD (20-40ms) was not very good at all untill recently (not talking about the refresh rate here), i still prefer my CRT over my 22in wide LCD monitor as i get not as much tearing on the screen, useing v sync is not realy an option as it adds an delay when paying games whats anoying

even if SSD uses more power the performace thay offer out way that loss even if there is any, TG reviews seem not so trust worthy any more dispoingt realy, do seem to do good ones but seem to not think some of the reviews tho
sola pannels been one of them that would of been better if thay use 1 more pannel + bigger bat

Some people also argue about whether spell checkers are effective or not, but sometimes we get some "real life" tests that supports the general consensus that they in most cases do work.


:p
Quote Cupboard 7th July 2008, 20:55
Quote:
Originally Posted by Woodstock
Quote:
Originally Posted by Veles
That's not what interested me about SSDs really, I'm more interested in the performance side.
same, but i wouldnt complain about more battery life when on the go

Added to the fact that it is a lot harder to kill an SSD by dropping it. That reliability is very important to me too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smilodon
Some people also argue about whether spell checkers are effective or not, but sometimes we get some "real life" tests that supports the general consensus that they in most cases do work.


:p
:D
Quote Woodstock 10th July 2008, 00:54
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cupboard
Quote:
Originally Posted by Woodstock
Quote:
Originally Posted by Veles
That's not what interested me about SSDs really, I'm more interested in the performance side.
same, but i wouldnt complain about more battery life when on the go

Added to the fact that it is a lot harder to kill an SSD by dropping it. That reliability is very important to me too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smilodon
Some people also argue about whether spell checkers are effective or not, but sometimes we get some "real life" tests that supports the general consensus that they in most cases do work.


:p
:D

TBH ive never dropped a harddrive
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