Upgrade Laptop Drive to SSD
- Thread starter BraveSirRobbin
- Start date
Power (watts or VA) = volts x amps. The voltage difference is accounted for in the formula.
The wattage of the replacement SSD was considerably greater than that of the hard drive that it was replacing. I don't remember the numbers. The great power savings realized with SSD is greatly due to the fact that the mechanical drive needs to spin the motor continuously which uses a lot of power/battery life.
Mike.
The wattage of the replacement SSD was considerably greater than that of the hard drive that it was replacing. I don't remember the numbers. The great power savings realized with SSD is greatly due to the fact that the mechanical drive needs to spin the motor continuously which uses a lot of power/battery life.
Mike.
Most 2.5" SATA disks use only the 5V power and don't require 12V at all, even though it is available on the SATA interface.
The power requirements for SSDs has probably dropped in recent years as technology has improved. I checked a few recent drives and the SSDs require a bit less maximum power than hard drives.
An example:
WD 1.0 TB Black Performance HDD
Max power: 5.35W
Average power: 2.0W
Idle power: 0.85W
Samsung QVO 870 1.0TB SSD
Max power: 4.0W
Average power: 2.2W
Idle power: 0.03W
The power requirements for SSDs has probably dropped in recent years as technology has improved. I checked a few recent drives and the SSDs require a bit less maximum power than hard drives.
An example:
WD 1.0 TB Black Performance HDD
Max power: 5.35W
Average power: 2.0W
Idle power: 0.85W
Samsung QVO 870 1.0TB SSD
Max power: 4.0W
Average power: 2.2W
Idle power: 0.03W
The SSD requires more average power than the HDD and all the load is on the 5v supply instead of maybe 50% being on the 12v supply. The doubling of the load on the 5v supply could be a problem in a marginal power supply of a laptop.RAL said:
It would be hard to predetermine, as the specs prefer to just give total power capacity, which includes all voltages, and not spec individual output capacities.
I don't think the load on the 5V supply is increased. Most spinning 2.5" hard disks use 5V only, and not the 12V supply. I can't say that's true for every 2.5" SATA disk ever made, but I just checked some 12 year old Hitachi disks that I have and even those used only 5V and not 12V, and draw 5W max. The use of 12V is more common on 3.5" hard disks because of the larger, heavier platters and the need for a stronger motor. They typically draw 9 to 10W.LarrylLix said:
So if the 2.5" HDD is about 5W max, and the SSD is only 4W max, everything should be just fine. If the PC or laptop could run the HDD without problem, it should be ok with the SSD.
If the lack of 12v requirement is true, in this case, you will likely be alright, but your figures state the SSD has a 10% higher average power draw than the mechanical version. Peaks can be just a capacitor handled blip for a few milliseconds and may, or may not be, important.RAL said:
There is only one way you will know in the end, or you could check out alternative brands for average power consumption. Obviously standby consumption is very nice. These may be very obscure specs to obtain about the power supply you are plugging into..
BraveSirRobbin
Moderator
Installed a SanDisk Ultra SSD in the Lenovo IdeaPad. I also think this early adapter of UEFI laptop didn't handle that new technology that well so I changed the bios to legacy settings (in lieu of UEFI). I ensured this showed up correctly in the bios menu.
Downloaded a Windows-64 Home Edition ISO from Microsoft, created a USB bootable and did a fresh install of Windows without partitioning the 500 GB drive. Everything works great and the laptop will boot in under ten seconds. Also ran a torture test app testing the CPU, drive, memory, sound, video and network for 15 minutes with no errors.
One thing to note (and I hope Google crawler picks this up) is that this laptop was only three months from purchase at an Office Depot. It was an emergency buy as my son needed one for school after his died and I had to get what was available from my two selection of brick and mortar stores (Best Buy was the other one but they had nothing in stock),
So, I had 'walk-in' warranty repair and tried calling Office Depot and Lenovo many, many times wasting hours on the phone. I had three different service tickets with multiple varied promises from Lenovo that ranged from 'just bring in the laptop to Best Buy' to 'we will have someone come out to repair the laptop' with NO follow-ups to back those promises.
My fix cost me $60 and two hours of total time. This was less than waiting on the phone for all the attempts getting someone to honor the warranty from Lenovo.
Needles to say, I'm sticking with Dell (or any other vendor than Lenovo) for my next laptop. I have had a laptop needing repair under Dell's warranty and they sent a box out for me to ship it back to them! Turn around was under three weeks but they did at least honor their warranty unlike Lenovo.
Anyway, lessons learned and I appreciate all the comments in this thread!
Thanks,
BSR
Downloaded a Windows-64 Home Edition ISO from Microsoft, created a USB bootable and did a fresh install of Windows without partitioning the 500 GB drive. Everything works great and the laptop will boot in under ten seconds. Also ran a torture test app testing the CPU, drive, memory, sound, video and network for 15 minutes with no errors.
One thing to note (and I hope Google crawler picks this up) is that this laptop was only three months from purchase at an Office Depot. It was an emergency buy as my son needed one for school after his died and I had to get what was available from my two selection of brick and mortar stores (Best Buy was the other one but they had nothing in stock),
So, I had 'walk-in' warranty repair and tried calling Office Depot and Lenovo many, many times wasting hours on the phone. I had three different service tickets with multiple varied promises from Lenovo that ranged from 'just bring in the laptop to Best Buy' to 'we will have someone come out to repair the laptop' with NO follow-ups to back those promises.
My fix cost me $60 and two hours of total time. This was less than waiting on the phone for all the attempts getting someone to honor the warranty from Lenovo.
Needles to say, I'm sticking with Dell (or any other vendor than Lenovo) for my next laptop. I have had a laptop needing repair under Dell's warranty and they sent a box out for me to ship it back to them! Turn around was under three weeks but they did at least honor their warranty unlike Lenovo.
Anyway, lessons learned and I appreciate all the comments in this thread!
Thanks,
BSR
BSR
I had just the opposite experience with Lenovo. My wife's laptop keybboard failed. We had bought the machine at Costco and they would not take it back because it was almost a year old and they have a time liit on returns.After contacting Lenovo they sent her a prepaid shipping label and we had the laptop back in under seven days at no cost. I was amazed.
Mike.
I had just the opposite experience with Lenovo. My wife's laptop keybboard failed. We had bought the machine at Costco and they would not take it back because it was almost a year old and they have a time liit on returns.After contacting Lenovo they sent her a prepaid shipping label and we had the laptop back in under seven days at no cost. I was amazed.
Mike.
pete_c
Guru
In the 1990's mostly saw IBM Desktops and laptops around for corporate use. (Banks, Automotive industry, et al)
I avoided Lenova when that came to be.
Now in the last few years have gone back to Lenova Thinkpads from HP laptops (have both today)
I have not had any issues with my Lenova Thinkpads (TXXX and EXXX) or HP Laptops.
Doing a Dell hardware audit while negociating lease rates for around 12K Dell laptops did note many hardware issues a few years ago.
That said though it could have been from the way that they were used (gas and oil, logistics). I was though not impressed with the Dell customer service / selling representative that I used at the time.
The Lenova build is plug n play. I have learned much DIY relating to my laptops these days.
Just got a new HP X360 laptop. Not sure I really like the design.
I avoided Lenova when that came to be.
Now in the last few years have gone back to Lenova Thinkpads from HP laptops (have both today)
I have not had any issues with my Lenova Thinkpads (TXXX and EXXX) or HP Laptops.
Doing a Dell hardware audit while negociating lease rates for around 12K Dell laptops did note many hardware issues a few years ago.
That said though it could have been from the way that they were used (gas and oil, logistics). I was though not impressed with the Dell customer service / selling representative that I used at the time.
The Lenova build is plug n play. I have learned much DIY relating to my laptops these days.
Just got a new HP X360 laptop. Not sure I really like the design.
pete_c said:
Which one? I ordered a HP Envy X360 13" model at the beginning of December. but it hasn't shipped yet.
For my use case (needing regular computer as well as a Windows tablet for a specific job that I do several times a month) I'm hoping it works well. I got one with an AMD processor too. For 2020 machines, AMDs are cheaper, have better performance, and better battery life than the Intel 10th generation offerings. The 11th gen Intels are better, but still more expensive.
I did get the cheapest SSD drive in the computer and will immediately replace it with a 1tb Samsung 970 EVO NVME SSD drive. That is much cheaper than getting a larger drive OEM with HP and it will perform better than the crap they install too.
BraveSirRobbin
Moderator
Amazing. How long ago wat this? I tried multiple times two different phone numbers, even called their sales department with promises, but no follow-up!mikefamig said:
This was a few months ago. She did it all through the internet. After asking a few questions about the problem they gave her a ticket number and a shipping label saying that they would inspect the machine and let up know what they found.. They paid freight in both directions and there was no charge at all for replacing the keyboard.BraveSirRobbin said:
Mike.
