2010 MBP w/ Vertex 2 and OWC Data Doubler Battery Issue / HDD Recommendation

[nidhanwala]

Hey guys,

Recently purchased a OCZ Technology 240 GB Vertex 2 Series SATA II 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive (SSD) OCZSSD2-2VTXE240G for my 2010 13" MBP as well as an OWC Data Doubler. Prior to my SSD, I had a Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB 7200RPM (ST95005620AS) which I kept in my primary HDD bay and installed the SSD in the optical bay with the Data Doubler.

Though I love the speed of the SSD, I'm having a huge drain on my battery... I can literally watch the % battery life remaining drop a percentage point every few minutes. My MBP went from 5.5-7 hours of usage to 2.5-3.0 hours of normal usage (browsing, word processing, etc.)

I'm not sure, but I think this may have to do with the fact that the Seagate Momentus is battery hog, or, does it have anything to do with the fact that I put the SSD in the optical bay and left the traditional HDD in the primary bay, perhaps the SSD is not receiving the proper power management commands? I read it's best to put the SSD in the optical bay as to allow the OS to send the proper command to the traditional HDD in case of sudden acceleration (due to an accidental drop). Was I wrong?

This leads me to the following questions:

1. Need a recommendation for a traditional HDD for my storage drive. Anything 500GB or over is great. Would like at least a 5400 RPM drive (can go with 4200 if the power savings are significant). I'm considering the WD 750GB WD7500BPVT (seems to have some very low published power requirements) or some of the drives mentioned in the post below. I'm most familiar with WD/Seagate, but would gladly take any other recommendations based upon the fact that I'm looking for a decent storage drive with lowest power hit on the battery.

2. Do SSDs have power management built in? If so, would it be better for me to put the SSD in the primary MBP hard drive bay and the traditional HDD in the optical bay? Does it even make a difference? Since some of the drives that I'm looking at offer some sort of drop protection, does it make a difference?

3. Have any other users seen such a power drainage from using a traditional HDD with a SSD in their MBP?


Thanks in advance guys!

 

[nidhanwala]

Also, just came across WD AV-25 anyone have experience with this drive?

There's also the Hitachi Travelstar 5K750 (manufacturer's link)

as well as the Toshiba MK7559GSXP Hard Disk Drive


They all seem to have very similar power requirements with the Hitachi Travelstar 5K750 being the most efficient (but only by a hair, based on white paper). I guess, what I'm asking is does anyone have personal experience with any of these drives as well as the above-mentioned drives?

 

[nidhanwala]

To those that say that this might be some sort of software that's eating up my CPU cycles, it's not. Nothing apparent within activity monitor and this was done on a clean install of Mac OS X with 1.32 firmware of the OCZ Vertex 2.

Even in safe boot/mode, starting up on a fresh battery, with 99% battery life remaining, Mac OS X says that I only have 2 hours 39 minutes of battery life left which leads me to believe that this is a hardware problem... either a faulty SSD or a power-consuming secondary drive (hopefully the latter); which leads me to one my original questions, do SSDs have "power management features?" Shouldn't I have better battery life with a SSD?

Is there a way to force the secondary drive (which is installed in the primary HDD bay) to go to sleep when not being used? Is/should this be automatic or any ideas?

 

[Zap]

Wow, joined 2006 and no posts 'till now? Welcome back!

Shouldn't I have better battery life with a SSD?

Not necessarily. Some SSDs use as much or a hair more power than HDDs. See this link. Doesn't have Vertex 2, but Vertex 3 uses more than the Seagate Momentus XT, including while idling.

I can think of two other things that can affect battery life. The first is that you are running two drives. Normally the optical drive likely idles at near zero power usage, so having a second HDD/SSD in there uses additional power. The second thing is that with frequent use, notebook batteries start showing signs of wear (lower capacity) after the first year.

Is there a way to force the secondary drive (which is installed in the primary HDD bay) to go to sleep when not being used? Is/should this be automatic or any ideas?

It is with Windows 7. IDK with OSX.

 

[nidhanwala]

Wow, joined 2006 and no posts 'till now? Welcome back!

Thanks, been reading Anandtech back when it was a black/white page background and he was reviewing the AMD K6 processors (oh.. those were the days)...

Though I agree battery life should be affected, not nearly to the level it is right now... I think I have it isolated to the Momentum XT hard drive and am currently researching a way to change its power management behaviour through HDAPM...