Elucidate

June 20, 2009 at 10:17am

Kudos to Super Talent and all other manufacturers attempting to supply SDD to the general public.  There are obviously many benefits to forwarding this technology. But one that I find interesting is the potential power savings.  If you agree that there is very likely over 1 billion PC's in use.  The average HDD uses 9-watts of power averaged between idle and other, and you assume 2 storage drives per PC (mine has 7).  This equates to 15-billion watts saved.  To put this into perspective, I would guess that Seattle uses about 1-billion watts (1,000 megawatts).  So 15 cities the size of Seattle.  This is not trivial by any standard.  Then you include the increase in speed and less time needed at power levels other than idle and the savings goes up.  

I don't necessarily subscribe to the "green" drives having too much success.  While they do make a large effort to reduce power draws, they are substantially slower, has anyone done the consumptive use balance of time spinning to perform the same task for a faster drive? Plus as computer hardware components get faster, the latency of green drives will become even more pronounced.

If Super Talent isn't getting some of Obama's stimulus green money, they should!  You could start by send me a few drives.  

Also, less power use, less heat generated.  If you consider how much money and energy goes into HVAC'ing server rooms (closet in my case), there are derivative energy savings that account for much larger usages.

Wow...wow...wow! 

A link to HDD power uses:  http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/storage/hddpower.html

Next step: convert lighting fixtures to LED technology.   

If you liked the Elegant Universe by Brian Greene, you'll love the Endless Universe- Beyond the big bang theory by Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok.