Corsair Neutron GTX SSD Review (240GB): Link A Media Controller Tested
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 20, 2012 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- Corsair
- Neutron
- Link a Media
Power Consumption
The Neutron GTX consumes a fair bit of power when idle, which is disappointing. At 1.16W doing nothing, the Neutron GTX can have a tangible impact on battery life. Load power consumption is much more competitive. It's not what I would consider low, but it's not unreasonably high either.
The ONFi based Neutron is noticeably more power hungry under load unfortunately. In both of our write tests the regular Neutron gets very close to 5W of power draw. If you're going to use one of these drives in a notebook, make it the Neutron GTX.
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name99 - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - link
"Load power consumption is much more competitive. It's not what I would consider low, but it's not unreasonably high either."Well I guess we all have different opinions...
IMHO the only number that matters is whether the maximum power draw (usually sequential writes) is below 2.5W. Below 2.5W and you know you can use it safely in a USB2 enclosure. Above that and it will appear to work but fail at random times.
You might think you only want to use this drive INSIDE a laptop. OK, if you are SURE of that. My experience is that drives move with time from one location to another, and it sucks if I have to throw them away when they're still good.
You might think you will only want to use this drive in a USB 3 enclosure (and now you have 4.5W to play with). OK.... but again life's going to suck if for some reason you want to use that drive on a USB2 machine.
IMHO SSD architects are behaving like Pentium4 architects, doing what they like while ignoring power issues. This is a path that does not end well. We'll already at the point where nobody gives a fsck about the difference between a streaming rate of 300MB/s and 330 MB/s --- but people DO care about battery life, and they do care about devices that are gratuitously heating up their rooms and warming their palms.
At some point point, these architects need to grow up and follow Intel down the path of speed at reasonable power, not speed at any power whatsoever.
KAlmquist - Monday, August 27, 2012 - link
Yes, it is disappointed to see SSD designs get worse over time in terms of power consumption. The Samsung 830 does a good job of holding down power usage when idle, but can draw more than the 4.5W limit of USB 3.0 when busy.dishayu - Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - link
Can we have the Plextor M5 Pro review please? I can't make up my mind if i should just pick up a Samsung 830 or wait for M5 Pro.Mr Perfect - Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - link
I know this sounds archaic, but could you throw a mechanical laptop drive into the power charts? At this point in time I honestly have no idea if these SSDs even have a power advantage over a modern spinner. It's hard to tell if a "bad" SSD is still better then a good mechanical, battery wise.Visual - Monday, August 27, 2012 - link
Unfortunately I do not have any media that I can link. ;)killabee_me - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
Hi Anand,The test results didn't make it into Anandtech SSD Bench for some reason.
Could you make sure they get there?
Thanks.