Systems, apparatus and methods are provided for power management of non-volatile storage (NVM) systems. A non-volatile storage system may include a first interface to be coupled to a host, a NVM device, a storage controller including a command queue and a processor, and a second interface coupling the storage controller and the NVM device. The processor may be configured to handle data transfer requests from the host in an active power state, monitor the command queue and a data transfer rate on the first interface, determine that the data transfer rate falls below a predetermined threshold and the command queue is empty, enter a pseudo-idle power state, determine that there is a new command from the host, and exit the pseudo-idle power state and enter the active power state.