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Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

bbc.com

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Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#201

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

sushid wrote: post #43
alexghr wrote: post #36

At what point does this become a problem? They're using the naturally cool sea water to regulate the temperature in the container, but that heat needs to go somewhere... it heats the water. If this becomes a popular alternative to classic server farms, at what point does it start to increase the temperature of the sea? I know, the oceans are big, but so is our data.

Well you're making it sound as if the data centers being cooled somehow wouldn't happen otherwise. Seeing as how the alternative is to cool using A/C, surely it's the case of causing less harm than the alternative? Of course you could argue that the lower cost of this cooling method will create a larger demand for cheaper servers/data storage, which increases net harm, for which I have no answer.

There'll also be a lot less energy consumed in the cooling process - A/C is probably grossly inefficient compared to moving water around.

Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#202

Post by joering2 »

gnode wrote: post #198
cc-d wrote: post #193

> There has been growing concern that the rapid expansion of the data centre industry could mean an explosion in energy use. But Emma Fryer, who represents the sector at Tech UK, says that fear has been exaggerated. If we're concerned about the technology industry vastly increasing energy consumption, lets look at the entire medium sized country's worth of energy bitcoin is consuming for absolutely useless calculatio…

Naturally scarce stores of value like Bitcoin, gold, diamonds, etc. have always "wasted" resources, whether they be power, human resource, or polluting the environment. On one hand you could regard them as immoral because of this, on the other hand they enable the freedom to store value without trust.

How can you put gold bar, diamond ring and string of 0/1 in the same sentence in terms of "resources wasted" ?

Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#203

Post by elorant »

mpweiher wrote: post #23
cm2187 wrote: post #12

> Additionally because there are no people, we can take all the oxygen and most of the water vapour out of the atmosphere which reduces corrosion, which is a significant problem in data centres First time I hear corrosion is a problem in datacentres. I never noticed any corrosion on any machine at home or work. Does it have to do with the cooling of datacentres?

I think part of it is that even problems that are small/unnoticeable at the individual level become big when multiplied by a huge N. For example, I don't think I've ever had a hard drive fail in ~30 years in computing, well without being dropped that is, yet look at the Backblaze reports: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-benchmark-stats-20...

My guess is that you change disks often. I've had multiple fails over the years, either from overheating or more often from overuse for extended periods of time (aka more than five years). Although I've never had a failure before the guarantee expired.

Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#204

Post by macintux »

arethuza wrote: post #153
pjc50 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, Orkney isn't in the middle of anywhere, it's some distance even from Telehouse London.

Closer to Norway than London! Of course, Orkney was part of Norway before becoming part of Scotland in 1468.

TIL. Those pesky Vikings.

My cousin, from Indiana, is currently serving as a minister on Stronsay. The scenic photos he's sharing are certainly encouraging me to contemplate a visit.

Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#205

Post by goldenkey »

joering2 wrote: post #202
gnode wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naturally scarce stores of value like Bitcoin, gold, diamonds, etc. have always "wasted" resources, whether they be power, human resource, or polluting the environment. On one hand you could regard them as immoral because of this, on the other hand they enable the freedom to store value without trust.

How can you put gold bar, diamond ring and string of 0/1 in the same sentence in terms of "resources wasted" ?

Well for starters, if everything in the universe is computable, ie. digital physics, then they are all just configurations of information..

Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#206

Post by [deleted] »

simon_acca wrote: post #66
0110011 wrote: post #40

Wondering how long it will be until we have cloud data centers in space... Seems like it could be useful to offer a flexible computing infrastructure to small sats and science missions without requiring ground comms.

Actually getting rid of excess energy is a huge problem in space since it's pretty empty: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_Active_Thermal_Cont...

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#207

Post by gnode »

joering2 wrote: post #202
gnode wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naturally scarce stores of value like Bitcoin, gold, diamonds, etc. have always "wasted" resources, whether they be power, human resource, or polluting the environment. On one hand you could regard them as immoral because of this, on the other hand they enable the freedom to store value without trust.

How can you put gold bar, diamond ring and string of 0/1 in the same sentence in terms of "resources wasted" ?

Admittedly diamonds are not a good comparison, because they're not commonly used for investment and not fungible. Gold bullion is comparable insofar as it's used as a store of value, with scarcity controlled by natural limitations, rather than by policy. I'll admit that gold has some practical uses, such as in electronics, but that is not the primary market driving its trade or mining.

Its use in jewellery I would say is just an extension of its use as a store of value; it is desirable because it is valuable. If we simply wanted a lustrous metal (as may have been an early factor in its adoption as a commonly traded precious metal) we now have many inexpensive ones to choose from -- aluminium, chromium, etc.

Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#208

Post by sbhn »

Seems like a good way to create a new country. The country of Microsoft. Go easy on me down voters, I’m just imagining it from the perspective of China, Russia, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Cuba, Libya or Canada doing the same thing and the controversy that would follow.

Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#209

Post by [deleted] »

cc-d wrote: post #200
gnode wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naturally scarce stores of value like Bitcoin, gold, diamonds, etc. have always "wasted" resources, whether they be power, human resource, or polluting the environment. On one hand you could regard them as immoral because of this, on the other hand they enable the freedom to store value without trust.

>Bitcoin, gold, diamond You're being dishonest if you're pretending these things are identically comparable.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#210

Post by wglb »

ethbro wrote: post #197
cc-d wrote: post #193

> There has been growing concern that the rapid expansion of the data centre industry could mean an explosion in energy use. But Emma Fryer, who represents the sector at Tech UK, says that fear has been exaggerated. If we're concerned about the technology industry vastly increasing energy consumption, lets look at the entire medium sized country's worth of energy bitcoin is consuming for absolutely useless calculatio…

In the same vein, I'd be curious how much energy gets consumed by HFT.

And how much by machinery to run advertising?
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