Can 60mW of electric power generate 5.9W of "thermal power" in Intel 760p SSD?

[SYang56]

I have consulted with Intel customer support in Nov 2018 and confirmed that the Intel 760p 1TB NVMe SSD consumes 50mW (which had been revised to 60mW in late Dec 2018) of electric power during normal active reading and writing. I purchased the SSD and it heated up to 72 degrees (C) when writing data to it in my lab at 24 degrees (C). Using Newton's law, it was estimated that it was generating about 4.9W of heat. After a large number of email exchanges with Intel customer service, they were trying to convince me that the drive power consumption of 60mW, as published on the Intel website, was correct. They had invented a term called "thermal power", and had been saying that what I had measured was the "thermal power" rather than the power consumption. They quoted me that the drive has a "thermal power" specification of 5.9W. For comparison, I had purchased a number of similar SSDs by various brands. The measurements were consistent with the respective manufacturer's specifications, with Intel 760p as an exception. I had noticed a power assumption measurement of Intel 760p at https://www.anandtech.com/show/12349/the-intel-ssd-760p-512gb-review/7, which was consistent with our measurement. However, Intel customer support did not want to comment.

I have sent Intel customer support the Wikipedia link on the "first law of thermodynamics". Consuming 60mW of electric power to generate 5.9W of "thermal power" is a clear violation of the physics law. As a Principal Research Scientist in physics, it is far beyond my imagination that the Intel device does not follow the fundamental law of physics. Your comment would be much appreciated.

[SYang56]

​I have received the following response from Intel:

Moving on to your next concern about this statement “the Intel 760P SSD consumes 60mW of electric power when doing active reading or writing, and it generates approximately 4.9W of thermal power?” Your reading is correct. The thermal power specification for the drive that you are reporting is 5.9W. If you are getting 4.9W that means you are actually getting a better reading compared to the specifications.

That is, the Intel engineers have confirmed that an Intel 760p 1TB SSD generates up to two orders of magnitude more "thermal power" than its electric power consumption.

[JosafathB_Intel · Accepted solution]

Hello SYang56, Thank you for contacting Intel® Memory & Storage Support. The following information was provided by our engineering department: The Active Power that we list in the documentation is that which is measured using the application that is listed in the footnotes ("Active Power measured during execution of MobileMark* 2014 with PCIe ASPM and NVMe low power states"). If you are seeing a higher active power, then the workload being executed may be different then what was used in our testing. We cannot comment on how other vendors are measuring or presenting Active Power for their products. We noticed that you have an open ticket with our advanced technical support and we will continue to provide you with service in your other case. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Best regards. Josh B. Intel® Customer Support Technician Under Contract to Intel Corporation