Settings to reduce power consumption of NVMe Enclosure SSD

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Level 1

13 points

Settings to reduce power consumption of NVMe Enclosure SSD

Hey Community,

let me ask my question first and then give some context. I am looking for measures I can take to reduce the power consumption of my external NVMe SSD which is housed inside an enclosure.

I am using an HyperDrive Next USB4 NVMe SSD Enclosure with a 4TB Samsung 990Pro on my MacBook Pro M3 with Sonoma 14.4.

I tracked my power consumption with iStat Menus and I think you can guess what the big gap in the middle is caused by - unplugging my SSD.

On average the SSD draws 4-5W of power. This would be within the range of the specified read/write power consumption, but I am not using the drive at all. Stored on there are only some photos and videos.

Is there anything I can do to reduce the power consumption? I have read about "send to idle when possible" options in recent versions of MacOS, is there anything similar?

Thank you in advance!

Tell

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 14.4

Posted on Mar 22, 2024 12:51 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 22, 2024 10:26 AM in response to tellhensel

Welcome to the support communities tellhensel !

I do not know anything about your third party iStat Menus, or power consumption...however

see if this is it— look at your >System Settings>Battery>Options and make any changes that suit you best...

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Answer 2

tellhensel Author

Level 1

13 points

Mar 23, 2024 01:48 AM in response to leroydouglas

Thank you for your response!

I could only find these settings. Is there an option to enable the settings that your screenshot shows?

Are you also on Sonoma 14.4 (23E214)?

Am I missing something?

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Answer 3

43n79w

Level 1

8 points

Jun 23, 2024 11:30 AM in response to tellhensel

I have two enclosures with the same ASM2464 USB4 chipset, one with a Samsung 980 Pro and another with a WD SN850X. Both exhibit the same behavior under macOS that you're seeing. High power draw when idle, even if the volume is unmounted. I have even used a terminal command to force the "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" option that used to show by default for previous versions of macOS. That doesn't help either. As long as the enclosures are connected in USB4 mode to my 14" MBP either directly or through a Thunderbolt dock, they will draw power and get quite warm. I have even updated the firmware on the enclosures. I've been searching for similar solutions to the power draw problem with no success. If I plug the enclosures into my MBP via a USB-A port in my Thunderbolt dock to force a slower USB 3 connection, the enclosures draw less power. So I feel like this is a problem with macOS power management of USB4 devices, it's a bug or inherent behavior in the ASM2464 chipset's own power management or USB4 functionality, or some combination of the two.

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Settings to reduce power consumption of NVMe Enclosure SSD

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