On 05-10-18 07:23, bob prohaska wrote:
> Any idea what sort of power consumption can be expected for a
> modern small mechanical hard drive? The only one I have is old
> and probably uses twice the power of the Pi when idling. For 24/7
> operation that does add up. The extra wallwart and wires don't help.

I got the Seagate Expansion Portable because it was the cheapest. Last
year, so a modern version (maybe older ones draw more power, idk). It
only has one usb port, so no (extra) power, and works reliably on a Pi3
(plus or not) with the official 5V 2.5A adapter, even without the
"max_usb_current=1" parameter in /boot/config.txt. So the normal max
usb2 power of 5 V * 0.5 A = 2.5 W seems to be an upper limit for its
peak power draw. It could even be a bit lower, I haven't checked, and I
also haven't looked at idle/average use.

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