Driving datacentres’ sustainability goals

Flash-based datacentres promote greener digital infrastructure through energy efficiency, reduced carbon emissions, and improved efficiency gains.

Enterprises worldwide are recognising the importance of sustainability as climate change becomes more important during boardroom discussions with new regulations looming in. However, the focus on digital transformation is causing datacentres to consume more energy than ever before.

According to Bloomberg, an optimistic projection suggests that by 2030, the information and communications technology sector will consume approximately 8% of the world’s total electricity demand, compared to 2% recorded in 2020. It is expected that storage as a proportion of datacentre (DC) energy consumption, will continue to expand and might account for as much as 38% of the overall DC power requirements by 2030, making sustainability further important.

Before integrating technology to align with an organisation’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives, it is crucial to first establish a baseline and subsequently define a target to systematically advance towards those goals. This entails adopting modern technologies specifically designed for the contemporary datacentre environment.

Several companies offer a comprehensive suite of solutions that assist organisations to achieve this, empowering them to publish a sustainability dashboard and scorecard. These solutions enable continuous optimisation of energy consumption and maximisation of resource utilisation, aiding organisations in their pursuit of achieving their sustainability goals.

Flash storage can support more data per watt of power, enabling significant energy savings and lower carbon footprint of datacentres.

The selection of an appropriate storage solution for datacentres assumes a pivotal role in the realisation of sustainability objectives. By making an informed decision, organisations can contribute significantly to their environmental responsibilities while simultaneously advancing their digital transformation initiatives. Here are five ways in which all-flash datacentres can help enterprises achieve their sustainability goals.

#1

Fewer watts per TB, lesser energy for cooling: The most significant sustainability benefit of flash-based storage over hard disk drives (HDDs) is its energy efficiency. Flash storage can support more data per watt of power consumed than HDDs. In a datacentre, this efficiency results in significant energy savings and lower carbon emissions.

#2

A more efficient way of storing data: Flash storage supports de-duplication, compression and compaction. These efficiency features allow users to store more data in a lesser storage footprint, thereby reducing the costs of running flash-based storage systems. With decreasing costs, flash storage enables organisations to leverage its benefits on a larger scale, offering improved efficiency, faster data access, and enhanced reliability compared to traditional spinning disk storage.

#3

Cleaner manufacturing and sourcing: HDD manufacturing process involves the use of raw materials such as aluminium, glass, and rare-earth elements such as Neodymium (Nd) and Dysprosium (Dy) to make the magnetic media inside the drive. Rare earths are mined by digging vast open pits in the ground, which can contaminate the environment and disrupt ecosystems. When poorly regulated, mining can produce wastewater ponds filled with acids, heavy metals, and radioactive material that might leak into groundwater.

Unlike in the case of HDDs, flash storage devices are more easily recyclable, because their NAND chips can be remanufactured using previously used components without significant security or privacy risks. It is important to note that both manufacturing processes have their sustainability challenges, and efforts are being made to improve sustainability across the entire electronics industry.

#4

Lowest cost per Input-Output (I/O): Flash offers superior performance, even over nearline HDDs and hybrid SSDs/HDDs, which means it can handle more data in less time. Without powering spinning disks, flash delivers read speeds that are 10 times faster than HDDs. By reducing the time to access and process data, flash enables more efficient use of computing resources, which can help reduce overall energy consumption.

#5

Lower total cost of ownership: It is significantly easier to invest in sustainability goals if there is a reliance on a lower overall total cost of ownership (TCO) as a result of your efforts. While the initial cost of flash might still be slightly higher than that of HDDs in some cases, the TCO over the lifespan of flash-based storage is lower due to its reduced energy consumption, physical footprint, and lower maintenance costs. Hence, choosing flash-based storage over HDDs helps datacentres bring down their carbon footprint in a small but measurable way and help contribute to a more sustainable future.

By reducing the time to access and process data, flash enables more efficient use of computing resources, reducing overall energy consumption.

As the world continues to grapple with the challenges posed by climate change, businesses must adopt sustainable practices across all aspects of their operations. All-flash datacentres offer an excellent opportunity for organisations to align their sustainability goals with their IT infrastructure and they are already beginning to recognise the potential of all-flash datacentres in driving their sustainability goals.

By Shuja Mirza

The author is the Director of Solutions Engineering at NetApp India.

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