[runako]

You're only accounting for the RAM power. Accessing the SSD costs power, too.

[tedunangst]

Then I think I'd rather Windows prefetched my programs while I'm plugged in so it doesn't have to do so when I'm on battery.

[tanzam75]

> You're only accounting for the RAM power. Accessing the SSD costs power, too.

A typical modern SSD reads at 500 MiB/s, consumes 3 watts when reading, and 0.3 watts when idle.

A stick of DDR3 RAM consumes about 3 watts, just sitting idle.

The power consumption from prefetching is minor compared to that of the RAM.