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Topic: Does an internal CD/DVD drive "switch off" when idle.... (Read 8570 times) previous topic - next topic
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Does an internal CD/DVD drive "switch off" when idle....

Hi all

I'm curious to know what happens to an internal CD/DVD drive when it is not in use? Is it still drawing power? Drawing any system resources? Or is it effectively OFF when not being used?

Cheers

Max

Does an internal CD/DVD drive "switch off" when idle....

Reply #1
The unit is powered all the time (i.e. receives current). When not operating, it simply stays there waiting for orders that will come from the data port, or from the user (i.e. pressing the open tray button).
In other words, it is not the mainboard the one that says to the motor to run at a specific speed, or the lens to position and read. It is its own microcontroller.

Does an internal CD/DVD drive "switch off" when idle....

Reply #2
According to wikipedia, there is a SATA 3.1 standard revision, which adds a "Zero-power optical disk drive, idle SATA optical drive draws no power" feature. The revision was done back in 2011, so I'd imagine new optical drives already support it (or at least some of them). Older drives, however, do not and behave as [JAZ] said.

Either way, I don't think this idle power consumption really has any weight compared to power guzzled by CPU+GPU.

Does an internal CD/DVD drive "switch off" when idle....

Reply #3
Thanks for the responses guys..

Either way, I don't think this idle power consumption really has any weight compared to power guzzled by CPU+GPU.


I'll check the specs of my drives and see what they draw....  But just to confirm, are they always drawing the same amount or do they draw more when they are "doing stuff" (reading, burning, etc.)?

Does an internal CD/DVD drive "switch off" when idle....

Reply #4
I'd imagine they will draw more power when "doing stuff", as the motor doesn't spin if the magnets down get a current through them

Does an internal CD/DVD drive "switch off" when idle....

Reply #5
Memorex CD-RW drives can be configured in windows to be idle at a particular time, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 2 hours, whatever. 
It was some kind of a firmware interface I think but I'm not sure.  I even got it a few times to work on some non-Memorex products.  Unfortunately, it was only for Window 98 SE or XP though. 

I had to give it up since it's old stuff.  The old Memorex CD-RW drive itself I still have because it was faster, quieter, and more reliable than my DVD-RW drives.  It also had some good technical features showing up in EAC that the DVD drives didn't have either, like a buffer. 

What I do know, is that both CD-R drives and hard drives respond to the power configuration / sleep settings in windows.  So while, neither will turn off during sleep, they will go idle and the optical drive will stop spinning. 

Also, I noticed that some drives take a lot longer to spin up than other drives.  My Memorex drive is fast spinning up on boot up, but the DVD drives are extremely slow, especially the ones with LightScribe support, (which i never use!). 

Kind of annoying but true. 

Be a false negative of yourself!

Does an internal CD/DVD drive "switch off" when idle....

Reply #6
I'll check the specs of my drives and see what they draw....


I doubt you'll find a meaningful number.

But just to confirm, are they always drawing the same amount or do they draw more when they are "doing stuff" (reading, burning, etc.)?


They'll draw tremendously more power when the motors are spinning obviously, but yes theres probably some tiny current draw all the time.  The magnitude of it will depend on the device and how optimized for power consumption it is.  Most likely mobile drives will use less power than generic desktop ones, but all of them should be using relatively little. 

Does an internal CD/DVD drive "switch off" when idle....

Reply #7
@MaxDread: I'm kind of curious though, why do you want to know that?

Does an internal CD/DVD drive "switch off" when idle....

Reply #8
Thanks for the replies....

The reasons I want to know (seeing as you've asked!)..... I am about to start ripping my entire CD collection. I'll be using at least two drives to do this, maybe more. I've been having trouble though with having two drives on the same IDE Channel. But I do want to use those two drives (Plextors). May use others too. So I'm considering options for what to do with the second Plextor. One idea is to buy an IDE/SATA converter. A lot of people have had little success with that though, so another option is to get an external enclosure.

Tied into all this are my future needs. Up until now I've had no CD player in my room; all CDs are played in the PC drive. Obviously I'll have no need to do that once all my CDs have been FLAC'd. So the optical drive will then only be used for ripping new CDs, installing programs, and the odd bit of burning. All reasonably occasional. In which case, why have it drawing power all the time? Part of the reason for wanting to do that would be "green aspirations". Also, less draw from the PSU will make room for any future component purchases without the need for a new PSU. But if the draw is tiny, then I guess it doesn't really matter.

Cheers guys

Does an internal CD/DVD drive "switch off" when idle....

Reply #9
You'll always have trouble with 2 of any drives on a single IDE channel. They can't concurrently do things. It's been a long time since I had IDE but I do remember being told not to put your CD drive on the same channel as the main HDD. If you have SATA get a convertor, although if it's a desktop, a new SATA drive will probably be cheaper

Does an internal CD/DVD drive "switch off" when idle....

Reply #10
Thanks to all for the replies and help. 

Someone on another forum directed me to this:

http://www.buildcomputers.net/power-consum...components.html

...which estimates 1.5 to 5 Watt at idle. 

@Nystagmus (RE Memorex).  Sounds like a great idea.  I wonder why more manufacturers don't try to do things like that?