Lab Report for GreenBoost 2.0 Power Optimisation with Promise VTrak J5960 and Toshiba MG11 24TB HDDs

Blog written by Igor Misko, senior product marketing engineer, storage products division, Toshiba Electronics Europe GmbH, published August 7, 2026

Introduction
Energy efficiency has become a key requirement in modern data centres. While HDD-based storage remains the most cost-eective solution for storing petabytes of data, operators are increasingly seeking ways to reduce power consumption without compromising performance or availability.

Promise Technology has introduced GreenBoost 2.0, a power optimization technology for its VTrak J5960 JBOD platform. The soware applies intelligent drive power-saving policies to reduce energy consumption during idle periods while maintaining full performance when storage activity increases.

This lab report evaluates the effectiveness of GreenBoost 2.0 in a fully populated 60-bay storage configuration equipped with Toshiba MG11 24TB SATA Enterprise Capacity HDDs. The goal was to quantify potential energy savings and determine whether performance or cooling characteristics were affected.

The system was tested in the Toshiba HDD Innovation Lab under both idle and active workload conditions, comparing configurations with GreenBoost enabled and disabled.

Setup in the Toshiba HDD Lab

Test Methodology
Power consumption was measured using a Rohde & Schwarz HMC8015 power analyzer connected to the system’s AC power input. Measurements represent the complete storage subsystem, including the JBOD power supplies, I/O modules, backplanes and expanders, as well as all 60 installed HDDs.

All workload testing was performed using the Flexible I/O Tester (fio). Drives were accessed directly as individual block devices without a file system layer.

The benchmark configuration consisted of:

• Direct I/O enabled
• io_uring I/O engine
• 1MB block size for sequential and random read/write (r/w) workloads
• 20-minute runtime per workload
• All 60 drives accessed in parallel

Sequential read, sequential write and random read/write tests were performed to verify that GreenBoost did not adversely ffect throughput under active workloads.

With GreenBoost 2.0 enabled, system power consumption decreased from 537 W to 283 W, representing a reduction of approximately 47% while the storage system remained fully available. Such a reduction can provide significant operational savings in storage infrastructures where systems spend extended periods in standby or low-activity states, including:

• Archive storage
• Backup repositories
• Surveillance retention systems
• Nearline storage
• Data lakes
• AI data repositories

Performance Measurements

Testing confirmed that GreenBoost 2.0 does not affect performance under active workloads.

Sequential throughput remained unchanged whether GreenBoost was enabled or disabled. Likewise, power consumption under active workloads remained constant at approximately 578 W in both configurations. These results indicate that GreenBoost primarily targets idle energy consumption while automatically returning drives to full performance operation when required.

Temperature Measurements
The J5960 cooling system maintained all drives within the recommended operating temperature range during testing. The measured temperature spread of only 10°C across all 60 drives demonstrates balanced airflow throughout the enclosure. The maximum HDD temperature remained below 45°C, supporting long-term drive reliability and efficient operation.

Estimated Annual Energy Savings
Assuming continuous operation, the measured idle power of 254 W translates into substantial annual energy savings. In deployments with multiple JBODs, the cumulative savings become increasingly significant and can contribute directly to lower operating costs and reduced carbon emissions.

System Considerations
The test results show that GreenBoost 2.0 is particularly beneficial for capacity-oriented storage environments where systems must remain online but are not continuously active. Unlike traditional power-saving approaches that may reduce performance, GreenBoost lowers energy consumption during idle operation while preserving full storage throughput under active workloads. For organisations seeking to improve storage sustainability metrics without modifying hardware platforms, GreenBoost provides an eective soware-based optimisation mechanism.

Summary
The Toshiba HDD Innovation Lab evaluated Promise GreenBoost 2.0 using a fully populated Promise VTrak J5960 equipped with 60 Toshiba MG11ACA24TE SATA 24TB Enterprise Capacity HDDs, providing a total raw capacity of 1.44PB.

The results demonstrated a 47% reduction in idle power consumption, reducing system power draw from 537 W to 283 W through the use of the Independent Drive Power Saving policy.

At the same time, active workload performance remained unchanged, delivering approximately 7 GB/s sequential read and 6 GB/s sequential write throughput, with identical power consumption under load. GreenBoost 2.0 therefore provides an effective method of reducing operational energy consumption and improving sustainability without compromising storage performance, making it particularly attractive for large-scale archive, backup, surveillance, nearline storage and AI data repository deployments.