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> Downloading Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, at 250 GB [1] The rest of your comment is spot on but in the spirit of similar accuracy it's worth noting that

> Downloading Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, at 250 GB [1] The rest of your comment is spot on but in the spirit of similar accuracy it's worth noting that that 250GB on the drive isn't how much is actually transferred. That said, while I'm sure energy improvements have happened and those numbers aren't correct I do think there's something to consider in the full equation of sheer number of pieces of equipment between you and the server. If we assumed 1wh per device per GB, that could sometimes be 10-20wh just for routers on your path. That doesn't include switches at the destination, server energy usage, etc. I have no idea what the number actually is on a per GB basis but just using that sample assumption as a way of illustrating that it could add up quite quickly. I suspect in reality it's nowhere near 1wh per device per GB transferred for routers, as even reasonably efficient consumer routers are 5-15W devices.

p1necone 4y ago
You also need to take into account the fact that most of this equipment is always going to be turned on and processing some non trivial level of load whether you're sending requests or not. There's generally going to be a difference in power consumption between different levels of load above idle state, but an n% increase in bandwidth is almost always going to result in < n% increase in power consumption. Also, any section of the network that's at full throughput all the time, and just evenly divides that throughput amongst users as it gets more load is not going to consume /any/ more power per GB no matter how many requests you throw at it.
- toast0 4y ago
  > Also, any section of the network that's at full throughput all the time, and just evenly divides that throughput amongst users as it gets more load is not going to consume /any/ more power per GB no matter how many requests you throw at it. If it's at full throughput, you can't throw more load at it (well, smaller packets is more load than larger packets for the same throughput).
  - p1necone 4y ago
    I meant more at an individual level - like if I use 100gb of bandwidth today, and 200gb of bandwidth tomorrow there's a good chance that the extra power consumption on at least some of the network from my extra bandwidth is zero if what I described in my previous comment is the case. If everyone attempted to double their bandwidth usage tomorrow, then yes equipment is going to have to be upgraded. (Although even that could be a case of upgrading equipment that provided N throughput and cost Y watt hours before to newer equipment that provides 2N throughput, and still costs Y watt hours)

p1necone 4y ago

You also need to take into account the fact that most of this equipment is always going to be turned on and processing some non trivial level of load whether you're sending requests or not. There's generally going to be a difference in power consumption between different levels of load above idle state, but an n% increase in bandwidth is almost always going to result in < n% increase in power consumption. Also, any section of the network that's at full throughput all the time, and just evenly divides that throughput amongst users as it gets more load is not going to consume /any/ more power per GB no matter how many requests you throw at it.

toast0 4y ago
> Also, any section of the network that's at full throughput all the time, and just evenly divides that throughput amongst users as it gets more load is not going to consume /any/ more power per GB no matter how many requests you throw at it. If it's at full throughput, you can't throw more load at it (well, smaller packets is more load than larger packets for the same throughput).
- p1necone 4y ago
  I meant more at an individual level - like if I use 100gb of bandwidth today, and 200gb of bandwidth tomorrow there's a good chance that the extra power consumption on at least some of the network from my extra bandwidth is zero if what I described in my previous comment is the case. If everyone attempted to double their bandwidth usage tomorrow, then yes equipment is going to have to be upgraded. (Although even that could be a case of upgrading equipment that provided N throughput and cost Y watt hours before to newer equipment that provides 2N throughput, and still costs Y watt hours)