On The Register is an article discussing The Data Center's Green Direction is a Dead End... So, uh, gee... The argument is that "an ample supply of energy is necessary to grow any business over the long-term" and that there is no choice but be on a treadmill of ever-increasing energy use just so that business can grow. Uh, gee. If the 'energy' comes from the usual sources that will mean a lot of coal being burned, and fossil fuel resources are demonstrably harming the ecosphere in a way which threatens our very survival.
There's a flaw in thinking here. I do agree that for a business to continue growing, the physical capabilities of that business must also grow. In terms of storage the business must be able to store and process more data more quickly. The flaw is in assuming the increase in capabilities has to result in an increase in energy use.
More/faster can be done through using more efficient equipment such that more/faster can also be coupled with less energy use. This would be the equivalent to using compact flourescent lights in preference to incandescent, or even better using LED lights in preference to either of those. What the user of a lightbulb wants is to be illuminated by LUMENS. The Lumens can come from any light source, and if the light bulb is one which more efficiently converts electrons to lumens then there is an environmental and fiscal win.
I don't myself know enough about the storage industry to say exactly which equipment could result in more/faster and less energy use. What I wish to point to is the importance of doing so. There are needs here which are not properly measured by economic measures. Global warming is harming ecological niches all over the planet and it is nigh on impossible to put a monetary measure on their worth and so therefore those who are making decisions purely from economics spreadsheets are missing the big picture through being overly focused on their numbers and missing the real need.
Interesting point: "the Indianapolis 500 isn't won by the driver who can make the most laps on a single tank of gas" indicates an attitude that you can be thoroughly wasteful and use all the energy you want .. presumably because there is infinite energy available, and there are no harmful side effects from using energy. This however is false on both assumptions. First, almost every energy resource available to mankind is based on mining resources which are in limited quantity. Namely oil, coal, natural gas, not to mention the metals and other raw materials that go into making the computers. Every mined resource with limited quantity undergoes a "peak" effect one aspect of which is popularly known as "peak oil". However this effect applies to every such resource.
The observation over decades of monitoring oil production is that the capacity to produce oil from oil fields goes through a bell-curve of production quantity. It's not that an oil field abruptly runs out, but that after a midpoint it becomes harder and harder to extract oil from an oil field. A similar phenomenon happens with every other limited availability resource.
The paradigm of the race car driver throwing as much energy as possible into winning the race follows a pattern of rapid energy use, which in turn is going to rapidly use up the limited availability resource pool which supplies the energy.
The second assumption, that there are no harmful side effects, is also false as I noted above. Scientists have studied the exhaust of burning fossil fuels, they know all the emitted gasses, and they have demonstrated that the rise of those same chemicals in the environment matches the rising rate of burning fossil fuels. In other words there is a clear connection to harmful side effects from burning the fossil fuels which are overwhelmingly used to create the electricity that drives our beloved data centers.
The race car driver paradigm inexoribly leads us to using up the resource which drives the car, and in the meantime leads to poisoning the race car driver from the poisons emitted by burning the oil that drives the car.
The article asks a couple time what the customer really needs ... and, sure, there is a need for more/faster storage, but isn't there a more fundamental need all of us have to live?
