CD Drive or HDD- Which draws more power?

[Rockinacoustic]

I have absolutely no use for the CD drive in my Acer Aspire TimelineX. I already replaced the HDD with a Samsung 830 SSD.

I've read that even at idle a CD drive draws substantial power (but not how it compares to an idling 5400rpm 2.5" HDD). If I swapped it out for my old HDD via an SATA caddy, would I see an improvement in battery life compared to now?

Thanks in advance!

 

[corkyg]

Possibly a little bit. I don't see it is enough to get excited about. I removed the optical drive from my Lenovo T510, and replaced it with a HDD. Since I rarely use battery power, I've not observed anything significant. It can't hurt.

 

[Rockinacoustic]

Possibly a little bit. I don't see it is enough to get excited about. I removed the optical drive from my Lenovo T510, and replaced it with a HDD. Since I rarely use battery power, I've not observed anything significant. It can't hurt.

Thanks. I figure even if it breaks even having a spare drive for media is worth it. What HDD caddy did you use?

 

[corkyg]

Thanks. I figure even if it breaks even having a spare drive for media is worth it. What HDD caddy did you use?

In a Lenovo T510, all drives are housed inthe same drive caddy, which includes rubber rails. The optical drive is in an easily released adapter called Ulttrabay. In this case, Ultrabay III. There are now two versions of the adapter - one 9.5mm and the other 12.7mm. I am using the 12.7mm adapter.

 

[Tushaar]

You can simply disable it in the Device Manager if its power consumption is bothering you.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

You can simply disable it in the Device Manager if its power consumption is bothering you.

I don't think that will turn off the drive.

In general though, a cd drive at idle probably uses so little power you won't net anything.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

CDs will spin down when not in use.

They'll run off of a USB connection, so even when they're running, they must use less than whatever the USB 2 power limit is... 2.5w?