N56VZ add SSD and battery life

I am contemplating upgrading my 7200 RPM HD with a 256G SSD to imnprove speed and battery life. I know it will improve elements of the speed, but does anyone have any real world observations of tanglible changes in battery life after upgrading to an SSD. This would be for general surfing and email. I plug in for prolonged video or gaming.

Thanks

 

Here is an evaluation you might find helpful: Are SSDs Worth the Money? - Test 4: Battery Life

The difference doesn't appear to be astronomical, but depending on the drives you're comparing you stand to gain around 15 minutes depending on the task(s) as well.

Here's another thread with a similar discussion.

 

Let's look at some numbers.

According to one manufacturer a good mobile HDD consumes around 0.8W in idle and 1.8W in Read/Write mode. ( example) It might be more than that actually, but it is a starting point.

Depending on model, manufacturer and sometimes capacity, a SSD can consume between 0.3 and 1.2W in idle and anywhere between 1.8 and 6W while writing. ( data here)

Now, comparing power consumption while writing to the disk can prove tricky since the SSD will always finish faster, sometimes an order of magnitude faster, therefore entering idle "long" before the HDD. What we can do however is to compare idle power consumption and it's effect on best projection for battery life. As you can see some SSDs have lower idle power consumption that conventional HDDs, some use more power.

Let's consider a system with a 48W/HR battery, a 6W/HR idle state power consumption (without a disk), and then add a HDD with 0.8W/HR or a SSD with 0.3W/HR power consumption at idle.

Theoretical battery life with system always in idle state would be
with HDD - 48/(6+0.8) = 7 hours 03 minutes
with SSD - 48/(6+0.3) = 7 hours 37 minutes

There you have it: at best you win ~30 minutes of battery life, but keep in mind this is a very optimistic scenario with a very efficient system. The more power hungry your system is overall, the less battery life you gain.

 

Excellent. that was an exhaustive level of detail that makes me wish i'd gotten a more technical formal education. I'll have to make up the difference in my spare time.

Thank you very much, Coercitiv