4 ms·

Any stats on power consumption? Over 5 years the difference between a drive that uses 6 Watts and one that uses 7 is 44kWh or about $5. Double that to include

by cbr 13y ago

Any stats on power consumption? Over 5 years the difference between a drive that uses 6 Watts and one that uses 7 is 44kWh or about $5. Double that to include cooling costs and saving a Watt should be worth something like $10 to you, so a more expensive more efficient drive could be worth it. Do these drives all use similar amounts of power?

ars 13y ago
Cooling costs are an extra one third (and even that is only during the summer), not even close to double.
- gibybo 13y ago
  Do you have a source or at least an explanation for that? I've always thought it took at least as much energy to cool something as it did to heat it (because AC is not 100% efficient), but I've been pretty wrong about thermodynamics in the past so I'd like to dive a bit deeper here. Maybe this is only true for AC, and not water cooling being pumped to passive radiators on the roof? EDIT: Here: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/efficiency/internal/ https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/efficiency/internal..., Google is claiming a 'Power usage effectiveness' of 1.11 across their data centers. This implies a cooling cost <= 11% of their server costs which I found quite surprising.
  - TheCoelacanth 13y ago
    Hard drives are going to run hotter than the outside temperature even in the middle of the summer, so they are going to get quite a bit of natural cooling for free. The cooling they have to do is just a supplement to the cooling that happens naturally.
  - ars 13y ago
    It's pretty easy to calculate. Just find a window A/C and check the BTU it's rated for and the wattage. Convert BTU to watts, then do wattage to power the A/C divided by the watts of cooling power. Then note that this is the worse case scenario - normally it does better than that except on the very hottest days of the year.

4 ms·

Any stats on power consumption? Over 5 years the difference between a drive that uses 6 Watts and one that uses 7 is 44kWh or about $5. Double that to include

by cbr 13y ago

ars 13y ago
Cooling costs are an extra one third (and even that is only during the summer), not even close to double.
- gibybo 13y ago
  Do you have a source or at least an explanation for that? I've always thought it took at least as much energy to cool something as it did to heat it (because AC is not 100% efficient), but I've been pretty wrong about thermodynamics in the past so I'd like to dive a bit deeper here. Maybe this is only true for AC, and not water cooling being pumped to passive radiators on the roof? EDIT: Here: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/efficiency/internal/ https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/efficiency/internal..., Google is claiming a 'Power usage effectiveness' of 1.11 across their data centers. This implies a cooling cost <= 11% of their server costs which I found quite surprising.
  - TheCoelacanth 13y ago
    Hard drives are going to run hotter than the outside temperature even in the middle of the summer, so they are going to get quite a bit of natural cooling for free. The cooling they have to do is just a supplement to the cooling that happens naturally.
  - ars 13y ago
    It's pretty easy to calculate. Just find a window A/C and check the BTU it's rated for and the wattage. Convert BTU to watts, then do wattage to power the A/C divided by the watts of cooling power. Then note that this is the worse case scenario - normally it does better than that except on the very hottest days of the year.