New report says SSDs are, in fact, more efficient

So LAPTOP magazine published a report confirming what most people already believe to be true about SSDs (that is, before last week when SSDs supposedly hit the fan): they use less power than traditional drives. Apparently they got up to 20 minutes more battery life when testing an SSD against a platter-based drive in an Eee PC and Gateway T-6828 (which jibes with our own experiences using SSDs in laptops), but if you ask us, the discussion seems a little moot. SSDs perform way faster and are far better suited to portable computing where drives are moved, bumped, and jostled -- the power savings is great, but the speed and reliability are still our top two reasons for going SSD.

[404 @ Jul 6th 2008 3:22PM]

FTA:

"...but we got 20 more minutes of battery life with the SSD"

and

"...As you can see, both SSDs lasted exactly 10 minutes longer than the default hard drive"

I think adding the extra time from the SSDs together and saying 20 minutes is a shade misleading, not to mention wrong...

[Smacksmackums @ Jul 6th 2008 3:29PM]

I agree wholeheartedly.

Lies, lies, and more lies.

[JohnTitor @ Jul 6th 2008 3:54PM]

I especially love the graph, where 0.1 hrs looks like 3 times as much

[Avram @ Jul 6th 2008 4:41PM]

Not sure where the 20 minutes is coming from. We never said we got 20 minutes more on the Gateway. We got 10. We got 20 on the Eee PC 1000H. So take it for what it's worth.

At the very least, what we think we've proven is that you shouldn't let power consumption deter you from buying an SSD. I wouldn't buy an SSD to get an extra few minutes of battery life, but I would take this as "at least they don't use more power than traditional hard drives."

[jason @ Jul 6th 2008 4:44PM]

wow... you fail at reading comprehension

the 20min is for the Asus

the 10 min is for the Gateway

[CraigJ @ Jul 6th 2008 4:55PM]

The point of the article is not that SSDs use a lot less energy. The point is that they are not worse than HDs as reported last week.

"While 10 minutes out three hours is not a significant gain, it’s certainly not a loss. In other words, the SSDs we tested don’t use more battery life than traditional hard drives, at least not during Web surfing."

[nerdtalker @ Jul 6th 2008 5:26PM]

Considering how reputable THG is compared to LAPTOP magazine, as well as the thoroughness and complexity of testing (energy consumption in watts compared to an unscientific how-long-it-runneth test), I'm inclined to trust results that say SSDs consume more power than mechanical counterparts.

I'm curious myself. I've investigated SSDs for use in a variety of scientific applications where vibration-induced wear in traditional HDDs renders them inoperable in a relatively short time, in addition, the data acquired is valuable enough that storage cost is second consideration. While power consumption isn't a major consideration, it's still something I had taken for granted as being less.

[sirnoobius @ Jul 6th 2008 5:47PM]

@JohnTitor

you fail. 10 minutes is not .1 hours.

[Luke @ Jul 6th 2008 7:19PM]

@nerdtalker

Tom's Hardware... reputable?!?

Unfortunately THG has deteriorated so much over the last 2-3 years that they are now the checkout-line tabloid of computer technology. The SSD article was just another nail in the coffin.

Their recent heatsink review was a complete joke too. They flunked every single heatsink that used a backplate, despite the almost universal acceptance among modders and overclockers that that is the preferred design for custom heatsinks.

If you don't believe me, check out their forums. All their old time members (like myself) will tell you that they merely hang around because of the awesome community. Anandtech's research and methodology is far superior to anything that comes out of THG these days.

[jordan @ Jul 6th 2008 8:53PM]

@nerdtalker

You must not be serious...have you even looked at THG's methodology in that review? (as well as many others) There's way too many flaws to take it seriously.

Oh, plus now you're ignoring the more logical argument of a SSD using less power because of fewer moving parts.

Bad analogy, but to get a point...8GB RAM vs 8GB HD. You gonna say that the RAM would consume more power?

Worse analogy, but to argue the mechanical energy spent vs purely electrical: why don't you toss your computer and just use an abacus, since that's all your computer does (arithmetic), at the core

[DefPo3t @ Jul 6th 2008 3:23PM]

This just in,
90% of reports can be made to say anything 50% of the time D :


*disclaimer* i am not affiliated with charter communications, in fact i hate them (them being my only isp choice) but i couldn't pass up the chance to repeat their commercial.

[austin @ Jul 6th 2008 3:40PM]

thats a directv commercial where i live...

[DefPo3t @ Jul 6th 2008 3:46PM]

Do"H you are right its direct tv, but in it they are talking about charter and comcast and other calbe companies

[Big Al @ Jul 6th 2008 10:07PM]

Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of all people know that.

Anyway, I don't see why this is still a big issue. TH's article was pretty well debunked when it was first posted here...

Here is a good explanation on TH's site (sorry for the long read.)


mastrom 07/01/2008 5:36 AM
To Patrick:
First of all it's totally unacceptable to have this title and making such accusations about a "Hoax" when all but one of your graphs talk about performance and only one measures the "battery life". If you want to prove a "hoax" you need to perform all the battery life tests you can and then more.
Now to the real important stuff. Since I didn't know anything about your benchmark program I couldn't be sure how it works and I was unable to prove you wrong about your conclusion.
Going to http://www.bapco.com/techdocs.html I found the white paper for Mobilemark 2007. Under paragraph 2.5.2 Battery life rating methodology I read: "The benchmark generates battery life ratings as its principal metric. The battery life rating in MobileMark 2007 is measured in minutes. This metric reflects the number of minutes the system can remain operational while executing a chosen module. Each module will produce a different battery life rating, reflecting differences in system loading."
Everything ok until now. Each module should accommodate different usage patterns. And it continues: "The battery life is established by recording the start time of the benchmark, then repeatedly performing the workload. When the remaining battery capacity has fallen to 7% the benchmark records a timestamp once per minute. Once the battery has been depleted and the computer plugged in and rebooted, the benchmark compares the “start” timestamp and last recorded (“end”) timestamp. The battery life rating is the number of minutes between these timestamps."
Did you notice the important detail? "REPEATEDLY performing the workload". Well my friend, this is the reason your conclusion is completely off base. It is proved and accepted the SSD drives are faster (on average) than conventional Hard Disk Drives. Even your graphs prove this fact. However when you test the battery life by repeating the same workload again and again you force the system to perform more cycles of the same workload when the SSD is used compared to the HDD because most tasks in the workload wait for the hard disk to finish a task to move to the next. So unless you tell us how many times the workload was repeated by each configuration you can't compare the battery life times...
That’s is why the DVD playback test is so popular in battery life tests. It makes sure the computer will perform the same work per x amount of time. So please explain to me why you didn't publish the results of the "DVD2007: Battery Life" and the "Reader 2007: Battery Life" modules which are part of the MobileMark2007 as I see at the paragraph "3.0 MobileMark 2007 Scoring Methodology" in the white paper.
I suggest you change your title and publish more tests on the subject. Not only your graphs were wrong, your logic is flawed too.

[GatgetMan @ Jul 7th 2008 12:43AM]

Ah hell....


87.339% of statistics are made up on the spot...

[Isaac @ Jul 6th 2008 3:27PM]

Caption Obvious is obvious.

[Blaine Oliver @ Jul 6th 2008 3:29PM]

Sorry guys but if you read the article, it gains 10 minutes more battery, not the 'extra 20 minutes battery life' you claim.

[gerbick @ Jul 6th 2008 3:32PM]

That graph is very misleading... looks huge. But 10 minutes... I've gotten at least 30 extra minutes from doing minor things like trimming down my services, pulling back on my wifi usage, or even smaller things like switching from 32-bit color to 16-bit while on long trips.

10 extra minutes doesn't equate that extra price. I can get that by being a smarter user.

[Andrew Campbell @ Jul 6th 2008 7:25PM]

I love your avatar.

[Chris Aubeck @ Jul 6th 2008 3:40PM]

"the discussion is seems a little moot"

The article is seems a little rushed.

[Nate @ Jul 6th 2008 3:40PM]

the gain in battery life of 20 minutes is when they went form mechanical to ssd in an eee pc. while the 10 min gain in battery life was comparing it on a normal laptop (Gateway T-6828).

less skim more read pls

[Metkis @ Jul 6th 2008 4:25PM]

I see what you did there.

[Johan S @ Jul 6th 2008 6:10PM]

They weren't on SSD, so they had to finish it before their battery ran out.

[Will @ Jul 6th 2008 7:07PM]

If only they'd had another 10 minutes to finish it before the battery died

[404 @ Jul 6th 2008 3:56PM]

Which still makes Engadget's statement of "Apparently they got an extra 20 minutes battery life when testing an SSD against a platter-based drive in an Eee PC and Gateway T-6828" wrong.

Besides, the fact that the extra time was doubled using the same drive in a different machine implies that there is more to this.

SSD in Eee = 20 mins extra.
SSD in Gateway = 10 mins extra.

As the Gateway is a Notebook and not an ultraportable it uses more juice anyway, which implies that any energy saving is majorly influenced by the proportion of the machines energy used by the drive.

In an Eee where it's low spec the small amount of energy saved can power the machine for a fair while longer, whereas in a gaming laptop the energy saved might be pitiful compared to the stuff used by the CPU and GPU(s). In that case any energy saved might just be gobbled up in second by other components. That means Tom's Hardware and LAPTOP might both be right: SSD's may give you longer battery life, but only if the amount of energy saved is significant in relation to the energy used by the rest of the components.

(That doesn't explain how Tom's lot got less life with an SSD, so there's probably a flaw somewhere in that argument.)

[Surur @ Jul 6th 2008 4:26PM]

SSDs perform way faster...
-------------------------------------
Since when? Most SSD's are still slower than mechanical drives.

[Some Kid @ Jul 6th 2008 3:48PM]

they just figured this out?
but these are still too small and too expensive for most people

[jason @ Jul 6th 2008 3:49PM]

yes because having technology get smaller is a real let down for people...

if you meant capacity, then i would agree with you.

[o29 @ Jul 6th 2008 4:05PM]

He means small capacity-wise...

[o29 @ Jul 6th 2008 4:12PM]

"if you meant capacity, then i would agree with you."

....and I'm just now seeing that second line. :P

[stickybit @ Jul 6th 2008 3:50PM]

When the power benefit reaches reasonable limits (MUCH more than 10 minutes) please report then. A 10 min gain in laptop usage is, as mentioned above, something any user can gain by smart computing. Sure SSD's are the next wave to hit mobile computing but this is premature reporting in my opinion.

[Skazer @ Jul 6th 2008 5:09PM]

This was in response to Tom's Hardware who misleadingly reported that SSDs were actually worse for battery life. RTFA.

[Nihility @ Jul 6th 2008 3:50PM]

Two conflicting reports from two different web sites. Hmmm...
Who to believe?
That website is claiming a 5% increase in battery life from the SSD. Considering both sites tested different SSDs and assuming all drives are not created equal. I'd say both.

A 5% difference is significantly less than what I was expecting, the way these things were touted I expected a massive difference. This proves nothing. Was it really necessary to crop the graph like that to make it seem like there is a huge power advantage? I think not.

[Bearpilot @ Jul 6th 2008 4:06PM]

Battery life is not the main advantage of SSDs. Those of us who fly unpressurized airplanes above 10,000 feet need computers with flash memory because regular HDDs will experience more head crashes in the thinner air.

So an extra 5% battery life is an added bonus to all the other advantages of SSDs. For some of us price is not a factor--either we go to flash memory or we can't use computers.

We pilots who use electronic flight bags will just help drive down the cost of SSDs for everyone else!

[Adam @ Jul 6th 2008 4:13PM]

Do you fly often in unpressurized planes? Most Planes are pressurized to 8,000ft

[CarrotAndStick @ Jul 6th 2008 4:16PM]

At that sort of depressurisation, I'd say that a hard-drive crash would be the least of a pilot's problems.


Ok, kidding. You're a pilot. You should know better. Is the depressurisation really that bad? Us ordinary folks occasionally take our traditional laptops into planes now and again. Didn't realise that damage was being caused.

[404 @ Jul 6th 2008 4:18PM]

Aircraft cabins aren't pressurized to normal levels, at 30,000ft that's asking for trouble.

[Wwhat @ Jul 6th 2008 5:31PM]

Some military transporters don't pressurise I understand.

[Justin42 @ Jul 7th 2008 4:30PM]

I spent some time at 13,000ft in Peru. You get a winded a bit quicker then usual and there is a small chance for "altitude sickness", but I can imagine a pilot doing fine up at 10k.

[Alex @ Jul 6th 2008 4:09PM]

I don't own an SSD so I don't really care.

[computer.dude.28 @ Jul 6th 2008 4:49PM]

We don't care if you don't care. Some people actually do own these things, and I'm sure they care quite a lot.
If you don't care about it, why did you click, read, and comment?

[waterboy99troop @ Jul 6th 2008 7:29PM]

don't you know Alex is the owner of the stupid and pointless posts?...

i'll bet you money that he's just a kid that wants attention...

[GatgetMan @ Jul 7th 2008 12:47AM]

He originally thought this was a post about STDs


He was just looking for a support group...

[o29 @ Jul 6th 2008 4:11PM]

"if you meant capacity, then i would agree with you."

....and I'm just now seeing that second line. :P

[ShadowKain @ Jul 6th 2008 4:55PM]

I for one am sick of the back and forth SSD talks. They are still too expensive right now, so Im not going to buy one anyway. And an extra 10 minutes or so? Rubbish, do not care at all.

[Skazer @ Jul 6th 2008 5:09PM]

Okay, for those who keep saying "10-20 extra minutes is nothing!", please RTFA! The point was that the Tom's Hardware report of SSDs being worse for battery life was MISLEADING.

"As you can see, both SSDs lasted exactly 10 minutes longer than the default hard drive. While 10 minutes out three hours is not a significant gain, it’s certainly not a loss. In other words, the SSDs we tested don’t use more battery life than traditional hard drives, at least not during Web surfing."

"Our conclusion is that, in real-world use, SSDs offer a small improvement in battery life. While this tiny improvement may not be enough to sell users on SSDs as power-saving devices, it is certainly enough to say that upgrading to SSD will not cost you any battery life and may provide you with more productive minutes as you wait shorter periods of time for programs to load or for your system to boot."

[hung @ Jul 8th 2008 3:39AM]

I agree with one guy that there is nothing to assure that all of your tests are being carried uot in the same work load. I also think at least the video playing is a quite good test to assure the same working conditions.
web surfing test is really a manual test so I do not believe in your test.
You need to use the professional tool to reach a more acurated answer.

Thanks for your work.

[grull27 @ Jul 6th 2008 5:10PM]

I saw another study that said SSD's are more expensive. :D

[Wwhat @ Jul 6th 2008 5:34PM]

Those of us who fly solid golden airplanes don't care about price.

[andres @ Jul 6th 2008 7:31PM]

@Wwhat, wouldnt that airplane be about the same weight as it would be in lead?