Yes, really. So what you're showing is the Toshiba X300 8TB HDD uses about 4 watts more than SSD in idle or operating. Notably you don't seperate read vs write

Yes, really. So what you're showing is the Toshiba X300 8TB HDD uses about 4 watts more than SSD in idle or operating. Notably you don't seperate read vs write because SSD write actually uses more power than HDD and 20 watts of SSD write happens. You chose to characterize it by relative amount ignoring the insignificant absolute amounts. In the real world 4 extra watts of power just doesn't matter. If you have 3 8TB X300 HDD that's about $20 in power per year over the SSD. Not really something to base you entire decision around. In comparison 3 8TB SAMSUNG 870 QVO cost $1500 total, or, ~$1000 more than the 3x $150 X300 8TB. So it will take 50 years for the $20/yr energy cost of the HDD over SSD to matter. >Ah, yes, because everyone is only doing sequential IO to NAS, like you? This is a mischaracterization (or misunderstanding) of my statement. I said it doesn't matter because behind a rpi ethernet link it literally doesn't. The latency of the link and rpi compuational power dominates. You could have an optane behind the rpi ethernet link and it'll be about the same as something fairly slow. SSD in rpi 1 gig ethernet NAS are like using sports cars to haul gravel with trailers. If it was connected via infiniband it might make sense. I don't think you're making your arguments in bad faith but I do think you're a bit confused about what 4 watts is. And the physical volume thing is the same: very small things with large relative differences make for small absolute differences.