DVD vs hard drive in ultrabay, power consumption?

[precip9]

Does anyone have good info on the relative power draw of a burner versus a hard drive in the ultrabay?

Assume both are idle.

[Cigarguy]

Don't have any scientific proof or measurements but I swear, when watching a movie, my DVD drive uses more power then a HDD in the caddy. However, when idle the HDD uses more power simply because the HDD is always spinning where as the DVD don't spin unless I'm doing something with it. At least that is so on the T6x machines that I use regularly.

[rumbero]

As an optical drive is for me just a leftover from older times, i have securely stored it away to wait for the rare future occasion. I rather use a secondary HDD in the Ultrabay of the mostly desk based T61 Frankenpad, but which is most of the time just turned off anyway to not bother me with that spinning disk noise. So there is no power consumption at all, unless the HDD is manually activated.

Other than that, my main mobile T61 has none of both, but is rather equipped with an Ultrabay battery. Much more convenient for mobile use than additional storage devices which are rarely ever used while being on the road.