2 ms·

They don't even need to keep the hard drive spinning since there are no guarantees of immediate access. They can keep them off and spin them up when you need to

• tgtweak 5y ago
  Regardless, there is a cost associated with having that harddrive (on or not) sitting in a server in a datacenter with air conditioning and resilient power. My point was not accurate to the exact operating cost per drive, but if you want that, here it is: 1) 2.5kWh per month of drive-on power. Datacenter grade power: 30-40c/kWh normalized =~ $1.00 in power per drive. 2) 60 drives per 4U space. 10 storage pods per 1 rack. 600 drives per rack. full rack in a colocation facility: $250-$500 =~ $0.40-0.80 in physical space. Total cost per year to keep that drive up is, very ballpark, $16-22. The cost of running the drive is minimal vs the initial cost of $500 for the drive and storage server/rack/installation/network equipment etc. Network costs to transfer data from/to that drive are obviously nontrivial but again, the majority of the hurdle is outlay for capital.