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Fun fact: data centers account for 1.2% of American electricity usage. Finding more energy efficient data center architectures is a big deal that a lot of resou

Fun fact: data centers account for 1.2% of American electricity usage. Finding more energy efficient data center architectures is a big deal that a lot of resources are devoted to. Even a small improvement can result in large energy and money savings.

showerst 18y ago
Can you give a citation for that? Really interesting if true, thanks for sharing.
- Prrometheus 18y ago
  There's a few professors here at UCSD that are interested in low-power computing and data center architecture. The statistic was sited in a talk by Prof. Tajana Rosing that I attended earlier this week. There's one guy here that is working on ways to integrate flash with the system memory; he thinks he can reduce power usage by something like 40% in a data center setting.
  - listic 18y ago
    Moreover, this could result in a revolution in computing. If only we could have memory fast as RAM and non-volatile as Flash, everyone would use it and it would simplyfy computing a lot.
    - Prrometheus 18y ago
      Well, flash in its current form is better at certain tasks than either hard disks or RAM. Hard disks are big, cheap, and slow. RAM is expensive, power hungry, and fast. If I remember correctly, flash is faster than a hard disk, more energy efficient than either, and way cheaper than RAM. I'm not sure of the implementation details, but you could apparently make a system better on all three axes of performance, cost, and energy usage by mixing in flash.
- dcminter 18y ago
  I saw that figure in the Economist and was astonished by it: http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8781435 http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=... "A study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, released last month, found that the power consumption of data centres doubled between 2000 and 2005, and now accounts for 1.2% of American electricity consumption, though other estimates put the figure at 4%."

showerst 18y ago

Can you give a citation for that? Really interesting if true, thanks for sharing.

Prrometheus 18y ago
There's a few professors here at UCSD that are interested in low-power computing and data center architecture. The statistic was sited in a talk by Prof. Tajana Rosing that I attended earlier this week. There's one guy here that is working on ways to integrate flash with the system memory; he thinks he can reduce power usage by something like 40% in a data center setting.
- listic 18y ago
  Moreover, this could result in a revolution in computing. If only we could have memory fast as RAM and non-volatile as Flash, everyone would use it and it would simplyfy computing a lot.
  - Prrometheus 18y ago
    Well, flash in its current form is better at certain tasks than either hard disks or RAM. Hard disks are big, cheap, and slow. RAM is expensive, power hungry, and fast. If I remember correctly, flash is faster than a hard disk, more energy efficient than either, and way cheaper than RAM. I'm not sure of the implementation details, but you could apparently make a system better on all three axes of performance, cost, and energy usage by mixing in flash.
dcminter 18y ago
I saw that figure in the Economist and was astonished by it: http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8781435 http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=... "A study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, released last month, found that the power consumption of data centres doubled between 2000 and 2005, and now accounts for 1.2% of American electricity consumption, though other estimates put the figure at 4%."