MyDigitalSSD BP4 2.5" & mSATA (240GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on April 3, 2013 11:13 AM ESTPower Consumption
Given the increasing usage of SSDs in laptops, power consumption is playing an even bigger role than before. A power efficient SSD can potentially add an hour or more of extra battery life, whereas an inefficient SSD can consume more power than a traditional hard drive. MyDigitalSSD touted low power consumption being one of the main advantages of the BP4 and it definitely lives up to the claim. Idle power draw is similar to what we saw with Samsung's SSD 840/840 Pro while load power consumption is average. Especially for light workloads, idle power consumption is what you should look at because the drive will be idling most of the time.
The mSATA BP4 has higher power consumption but that's most likely due to the mSATA to SATA adapter. mSATA drives use 3.3V whereas the standard SATA provides a 5V rail, so the voltage has to be lowered with a voltage regulator, which uses some power as well. Anand did some measurements between 3.3V and 5V power consumption a while ago, but unfortunately our adapters are not the same so I'm not sure how much power my adapter is drawing. However, the 2.5" BP4 should serve as a good reference point since the mSATA version is essentially the same.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
35 Comments
View All Comments
CoryS - Wednesday, April 3, 2013 - link
Everyday I check for the HTC One review, and frown :(epoon2 - Wednesday, April 3, 2013 - link
supply chain issue lolMadMan007 - Wednesday, April 3, 2013 - link
Anandtech seems to have one though, they've included it in recent Android graphics benchmark charts.thesavvymage - Wednesday, April 3, 2013 - link
they have one for sure, anand posted his thoughts on it. In that article theyve said that they are working on their reviewalexvoda - Thursday, April 4, 2013 - link
Unfortunately I lost all my interest in the HTC One ofter this:http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/HTC+One+Teardown/13...
I find such construction method inexcusable.
SSDuser101 - Wednesday, April 3, 2013 - link
I can attest to the quality and support. I have a original BP3 from 2011 and see no reason to upgrade or change. These drives are BulletProof as the name suggests. Also followed lots of posts on Notebookreview about the drives and whenever there was a problem they fixed it. For example there was a bug with the W500 and EP121 that was pointed out and it was fixed within 4 weeks. Also they had a problem with the FW of the BP3 in early 2012 that only effected the 64GB mSATA SSD and that got fixed as well. And as far as drives dieing in the filed you will be hard pressed to find anyone who has had one brick on them. 2 thumbs up for MyDigitalSSD.Samus - Wednesday, April 3, 2013 - link
I've had a mSATA BP3 in my Elitebook Folio 9470 for about a year. Haven't had any problems...sometimes a simple controller design is better. Sandforce is ridiculously complex with a lot of things that can go wrong. With the exception of the Intel SSD 330, every Sandforce drive I've ever owned has given me problems.Johny12 - Thursday, April 4, 2013 - link
Samus, I too have had problems with my SF based SSDs earlier. But since I have started using Intel 5xx series of SSDs, my opinion about SF has changed ridiculously. I think only the first generation of their SSDs had some compatibility issues across SSD manufacturers. I am excited to hear about their yet to be launched 3rd gen controllers :DMyDigitalSSD - Wednesday, April 3, 2013 - link
Hi all Matt from MyDigitalSSD here. Thanks you for the great review. I would like to let everyone know there is a large shortage of flash in the market right now and it may be 2-3 weeks until inventory on this items is flowing again. So whatever you find on the market right now is it for about 2-3 weeks. Not the best timing for such a thing but just wanted to give a heads up for those of you wondering why you cannot find stock readily available.jhoff80 - Wednesday, April 3, 2013 - link
So, would you say that mSATA drives are generally proportional to their 2.5" counterparts? It sounds like they use the same controller, and the same flash chips (albeit fewer).For example, looking at 4KB random writes, the Intel 525 is third in performance. Would that also presumably mean that the mSATA variety of the Intel 525 would be one of the top mSATA performers?
My guess is that no, you can't assume that, but with so few sites with extensive mSATA benchmarks (and even here, there's only a couple that have been tested) it's hard to determine which is best and it'd be nice to have some way to figure it out other than guessing.