Shared Memory

[Henry Spencer]

On Mon, 31 Jan 2005, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> SATA has a new power connector, and future SATA specs will require the
> drives to start using 5V and 3.3V only while current IDE drives use 5V
> and 12V.  This will make a difference in power consumption (voltage
> converters are not 100% efficient after all and electronics today don't
> use 12 or even 5V).

The drive builders don't *have* to use 12V for anything if they don't want
to, and if they do, it'll be because there's a real advantage to doing so.
Doing without may increase power consumption rather than reducing it.

If your electronics are 3.3V -- which they mostly are, now -- then yes,
there is some advantage in getting a direct 3.3V supply rather than having
to convert it yourself.  But it's unlikely to be huge.  I'd guess that the
bulk of the power goes into making things move, in which case avoiding a
converter for the electronics isn't going to save a lot. 

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       henry-lqW1N6Cllo0sV2N9l4h3zg at public.gmane.org

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