Data-Doubler and power consumption?

[DanL]

I'm considering retrofitting my MBP with a Data-Doubler, which is where the optical drive is replaced by a storage volume. I'm assuming that if I replace with a regular disk drive, my battery lifetime will go all to hell, and if I replace it with an SSD there should be virtually no effect on battery lifetime. Is that true?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

Yes, a second HDD will definitely consume more battery life. An SSD will still consume power when idle, since it is still powered on, mounted, and being polled by the system. I remember something about an SSD consuming between 1/5 and 1/3 the power of an HDD, depending on whether it is idle or active.

Hope that helps.

C

 

[DanL]

Thank you. That makes sense. Certainly a second HDD isn't that smart, but I wasn't sure what the impact of an SSD would be. Of course, I could just power down one or the other. It would make sense to make the new SSD my boot disk, since that would vastly decrease boot time, and just use the HDD for "other stuff", which I could access by powering it up, or as an on-board backup disk.