Hard Drive Power Usage Question

[Keebler Elf]

Does a 500 GB hard drive use significantly more power than a 200 GB drive?

In other words, if you're using two 500 GB drives instead of two 250 GB drives, should you be upgrading your power supply? If so, to how much?

 

[joebear]

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[club69]

i believe the capacity of the drive doesn't affect the amout of power it consumes, but more likely how fast it spins (RPM), since the motor should be the component in the harddisk that consumes the most power
but i could be wrong too.

 

[joebear]

Keebler doesn't state the models so we can actually see the specs from the data sheets of the drive.

I suspect the power draw is minimal between the two drives and 2X250 GB drives would draw more power than a single 500 GB model but not significantly more

 

[Keebler Elf]

I don't have specific drives in mind. I was just curious if buying new high capacity drives would necessitate an increased power supply.

 

[Anynym]

The platters are the same size, it's just the data density which has increased. So I wouldn't expect higher capacity drives to consume more power: if anything, they might consume a tiny fraction less (as the read-write head doesn't have to travel as far most of the time).