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Western Digital's "Green" Hard Drives
MojoKid writes "Eco-friendly or 'green' products are becoming much more fashionable these
days, especially in things like high-end electronics, where the impact on the
environment and the disposal of these products is being regulated now by such
things as the RoHS compliance standard. In addition, power consumption is also
being looked at more closely for all the obvious reasons. Hard Drive
manufacturer Western Digital recently took the initiative by being the first
drive manufacture to produce and market
a lower power version of their Caviar line of hard drives. The
numbers here show that a green hard drive will probably only save an average
end user about 10 watts in total system power consumption. However, from a
data center perspective, where demand for storage is growing by the petabyte at
an alarming rate, 10 watts per drive can certainly add up quickly."
You get a HD with 10W less power need, a northbridge with 5W less power need, a CPU with 5W less power need, a video card with 15W less power need, a soundcard with 5W less power need, you've saved 40W already with minimal change in performance.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Which is more expensive, the power to run a magnetic hard drive and a tree to absorb the pollution or whatever, or a SSD?
From the ones that I've seen they typically use less than 1 W during operation and less than 0.1 W during standby. They certainly aren't high power devices nor do they need cooling.
Actually seeing as the drive only costs about $5 more than the previous/similar models, I would say it IS worth it. It is not worth it to run out and replace your drives, but if you are buying a new 500-1000gb drive I would say the savings is nice. Honestly, to me the specs on how bloody quiet these things are is the real selling point.
I have found most drives run at around 12 watts, so saving 10 is really significant.
Also with less power the drives should run cooler, this would really increase drive reliability.
I found most CoLo servers don't properly cool their drives especially 1U servers, where it seems I loose a few every year, but at home I can run those same drives for 5 years or more. Even the desktop servers I run in a dusty shed that freeze in the winter and bakes in the summer the drives are more reliable then the ones running in a CoLo with constant 50 degree super clean air, just because drives in 1U's run hotter constantly and under a heaver load.
RoHS is another story, it's been a somewhat difficult transition, unexpectedly is make passing FCC compliance more difficult because for the exact same board layout it had higher RF emissions. Don't know why, wonder if others have also seen that.
I don't see how RoHS is going to be any more "green", the largest change is moving away from tin/lead to Lead-free solders that contain some mix of tin, copper, silver, bismuth, indium, zinc, and antimony.
It's more expensive, and brittle which could decrease reliablity.
If the circuit boards are actually getting recycled instead of landfilled, it wouldn't make much difference anyhow.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
Reduced wattage is reduced wattage.... it's better to use only 10 watts, rather than 20, regardless of the source of your electricity. It's 10 versus 20 coal, but even 10 versus 20 nuclear can reduce demand on coal by another 10 watts.
You're being too cynical. Any reduction is beneficial and can result in less use of "dirtier" sources, even if you're not directly powered by them.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Since you don't get to choose how your power is generated, that's largely irrelevant. You do get to choose your hard drive though. If you choose one which uses 10W less power, whether your power is nuclear or coal, the environment (and your wallet) is that much better off.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
RoHS says which materials can be used in construction, WEEE covers disposal. (In the EU at least)
Great attitude buddy. So as long as someone takes it off your hands (and you can make a buck!) you don't need to know where the waste goes? Makes me really believe in future of mankind. Good stuff.
Now open your eyes and start acting responsibly, recycle your own waste in U.S and stop dumping/selling it around the world.
I globally agree with you.
But whatever we improve, IT still represents an ecological disaster.
Take a look at every tech stuff around you. Where will they be in 5 years? Surely not around anymore!
Obviously, those "green drives" are better than nothing, but in some years, nobody will want to use any 1TB hard drive anymore, and this improvement in power consumption only took place because millions of hard drive have been produced.
Just like for cars, we reduce the environmental impact of each product separately thanks to economies of scale, but what really matters is the global impact. And it sadly just keeps growing.
Do you have a link?
Typically thinner filaments are more efficient but more fragile. If they developed a filament material that is less fragile and thinner it would be a serious breakthrough.
Man, you really need that seminar!
I guess it depends on your requirements. I have two 1TB GP's that I use for media storage; in sequential copies (i.e. copying my data on to the drive in the first place) they averaged 50-60MB/s, with the preceding drive (a WD 750GB AAKS) managed more like 55-62MB/s when I initially loaded it up. That's the only tim eI've ever maxed out this drive, as even recording three DVB streams to it and watching two from it simultaneously keeps it barely ticking over.
As noted, it's byt far the quietest and coolest drive I've ever used, aprticularly when seeking. I'm prepared to wait an extra half hour in an eight hour rsync job if that's the case. It's just a case of priorities; fast, quiet, cheap. Pick any two. Balls to the wall performance has never been the be-all and end-all for any component in the consumer arena IME.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
Yes. That's it, that's exactly what he was asking.
OH, if you're looking for an ANSWER, that would be that an SSD takes on average 50% of the power, but perhaps 1/3 to 1/5 of the capacity of a similar form-factor hard drive. Meaning that per-drive they use less and per gig they use more.