Can you turn them off? Obviously you don't want to run a heater in the summer. And if so, wouldn't the resulting (massive) underutilization of hardware erase w

Can you turn them off? Obviously you don't want to run a heater in the summer. And if so, wouldn't the resulting (massive) underutilization of hardware erase whatever savings the data center would realize from not having to deal with heat? Not to mention the other (massive) costs of remote servicing, like literally rolling trucks to replace a hard drive. And 1000W is not even one standard space heater. I like the general idea but this decentralized in-the-home concept seems about as well thought out as their logo. It would be better suited to a centralized application like the heated swimming pool: year round usage, enough density to achieve economies of scale in servicing and providing site security. Or how about this: locate your next data center near a town with a district heating system, so you can tap into it and pipe waste heat directly into homes. (Sweden has lots of waste-to-energy plants that burn trash to generate electricity and hot water heating distributed through networks of pipes.[1]) In the case of Sweden you wouldn't even have to build out much infrastructure; it's already there. I wonder if anyone has explored this? EDIT: I just saw ville posted about this very idea. Cool. EDIT2: jessaustin notes that they keep the server running constantly and probably use a powered heat pump to vent it outside during the summer. (Which still raises questions for me about the efficiencies.. small scale heat pumps probably aren't as efficient as a large-scale data center implementation.) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating