4 ms·

Don't really care about capacity anymore, can we get the cost per TB to go down?

reisse 3y ago
Cost per TB in datacenter (where 99% of high-capacity hard drives are deployed these days) goes down with the increase in capacity, even if cost per TB for a single drives remains the same or rises. Rack space and server prices are a big part of the overall storage costs. Doubling the amount of data you can store in a single 1U allows to pay the same overhead for double the data.
- activiation 3y ago
  That might be true, but I am not a cloud provider. And i try to avoid being a cloud user.
  - killingtime74 3y ago
    To be frank you are not the target customer (neither am I)
rbanffy 3y ago
Long term, for mechanical drives, by the time the drive is retired, total energy consumption may very well be more than the unit acquisition cost.
- omoikane 3y ago
  I did a random search for "seagate drive power draw" and it lists 4.2W peak power consumption for a 5TB drive, which sells for $95-130. At California's $0.31/kWh, the energy cost per hour for that drive is $0.001302. It would take ~72965 hours or ~8 years for the energy cost to exceed $95 at current rates, and the warranty on those drives are only 3 years. But of course, energy cost keeps going up, and drives are surviving longer, so the energy cost could still exceed the acquisition cost.
  - wiml 3y ago
    In a data center, for every watt the drive consumes, you also have to pay to pump a watt of heat out of the building. I don't know what the numbers are like for a modern DC but cooling can be pretty expensive in terms of energy and equipment.
    - interestica 3y ago
      Canada should install data centres in the north. Data pipelines instead of oil?
      - adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
        There are a lot of datacenters in Iceland because it's cold and has cheap geothermal power.
      - justsomehnguy 3y ago
        People want to have < 20ms latencies[0] and DCs needs many power, so you can't move DCs way further than where they are already[1] [0] Well, actually most people don't give a fuck but Google would bitch what your site isn't shown in an instant (even if there only 1 page) and would degrade your ranking shrug_emoji [1]] https://www.datacenters.com/locations/canada?map=true&query=canada&withProducts=false&showHidden=false&radius=0&bounds=&circleBounds=&polygonPath= https://www.datacenters.com/locations/canada?map=true&query=...

Cost per TB in datacenter (where 99% of high-capacity hard drives are deployed these days) goes down with the increase in capacity, even if cost per TB for a single drives remains the same or rises. Rack space and server prices are a big part of the overall storage costs. Doubling the amount of data you can store in a single 1U allows to pay the same overhead for double the data.

activiation 3y ago
That might be true, but I am not a cloud provider. And i try to avoid being a cloud user.
- killingtime74 3y ago
  To be frank you are not the target customer (neither am I)

rbanffy 3y ago

Long term, for mechanical drives, by the time the drive is retired, total energy consumption may very well be more than the unit acquisition cost.

omoikane 3y ago
I did a random search for "seagate drive power draw" and it lists 4.2W peak power consumption for a 5TB drive, which sells for $95-130. At California's $0.31/kWh, the energy cost per hour for that drive is $0.001302. It would take ~72965 hours or ~8 years for the energy cost to exceed $95 at current rates, and the warranty on those drives are only 3 years. But of course, energy cost keeps going up, and drives are surviving longer, so the energy cost could still exceed the acquisition cost.
- wiml 3y ago
  In a data center, for every watt the drive consumes, you also have to pay to pump a watt of heat out of the building. I don't know what the numbers are like for a modern DC but cooling can be pretty expensive in terms of energy and equipment.
  - interestica 3y ago
    Canada should install data centres in the north. Data pipelines instead of oil?
    - adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
      There are a lot of datacenters in Iceland because it's cold and has cheap geothermal power.
    - justsomehnguy 3y ago
      People want to have < 20ms latencies[0] and DCs needs many power, so you can't move DCs way further than where they are already[1] [0] Well, actually most people don't give a fuck but Google would bitch what your site isn't shown in an instant (even if there only 1 page) and would degrade your ranking shrug_emoji [1]] https://www.datacenters.com/locations/canada?map=true&query=canada&withProducts=false&showHidden=false&radius=0&bounds=&circleBounds=&polygonPath= https://www.datacenters.com/locations/canada?map=true&query=...