Haha, Microsoft, you sunk a data center and now you think you can run Github.
Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
371–380 of 397 posts
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have. Including things like the heads falling off and spinning around, grinding everything to junk.
That sickening click sound that a disk drive makes when it's on the verge of failure is ingrained in my head. I tried putting one of those in the freezer once, and maybe it was a folk remedy, but it worked enough to boot and get my data off!
It definitely works. I just did it a couple of years ago.
In fact, no matter how long I left it in the freezer, I couldn't get all the data off. I ended up freezing it in the freezer, then putting it in a small cooler with a couple ice packs, with the wires hanging out between the cooler and lid. That gave me just enough to grab all the data (well, really, a couple of not-so-small VHDX files).
It was much fun, like a science experiment in high school.
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
That's just unbelievable. To even survive the Deskstar era blows my mind. Not a single drive?
Argh trigger alert, I bought four of those in a raid 10.
They even had the audacity to reject my warranty claim.
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coupling an undersea datacenter with an offshore windfarm just sounds all-around clever.
Until a hurricane destroys it.
Build all above-surface structures out of inflatables. During heavy weather deflate and retract (5-10m). Use simple solid-state generators, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaneless_ion_wind_generator
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#375> 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...
That backblaze report is absolutely fascinating! I'm curious though what the statistics would be from a more consumer point of view, with regards to quantity of use, operational temperature and so forth. I imagine most consumer drives sit idle almost all of the time, whereas theirs are more likely in constant use.
That said, that paints a pretty handy real world picture of what one might expect.
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#376> This is a tiny data centre compared with the giant sheds that now store so much of the world's information, just 12 racks of servers but with enough room to store five million movies. How much is that in Library of Congress units? This trend of not giving out data but appearing to do so is strange.
"The Phase 2 datacenter can house 27.6 petabytes of data."
Assuming you're using 15TB as one LoC unit, then about 1,800 LoCs.
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Meh. The biggest data center (ChinaTel's Inner Mongolia Information Park) consumes about 150MWe, assuming all of it becomes waste heat it's basically nothing: a nuclear reactor (each plant has 2~8) releases 2Wt for each We it produces, and they're usually sized between 800 and 1300MWe. Seems a shame to let all that heat go to waste. Surely we put that waste heat to use and a distillery or desalinization plant or som…
To let all that radioactive heat go to waste? Although maybe that's just the primary coolant circuit - is the water they use from rivers/the ocean made radioactive, or just heated?
I was thinking more from data centers. You could probably do it with nuclear too.
This gif: https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/images/2015/08/np... shows how typical nuclear reactors work. They're functionally just steam turbines, the nuclear power is just capable of heating a whole lot of water.
The waste heat, though, doesn't come in contact with the radioactive parts. That's what's happened on the bottom with the condenser.
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Meh. The biggest data center (ChinaTel's Inner Mongolia Information Park) consumes about 150MWe, assuming all of it becomes waste heat it's basically nothing: a nuclear reactor (each plant has 2~8) releases 2Wt for each We it produces, and they're usually sized between 800 and 1300MWe. Seems a shame to let all that heat go to waste. Surely we put that waste heat to use and a distillery or desalinization plant or som…
Desalination isn't a bad idea, but it does produce large quantities of waste brine, among other things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Environmental
>but it does produce large quantities of waste brine, among other things
So combination data center, desalinization plant, and pickle factory then?
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Local pockets of increased heat have not been observed to nurture life? That's absolutely not what the comment you're replying to says. What it says is: > If this were the case, the biological density of the highest-temperature locations in the ocean should be significantly higher than average. > Thermals mentioned by OP are just one obvious example. Thermals are not just heat, and by and large the heat is not a so…
Listen, my claim is simple: submerged data centres will give rise to richer, more complex ecosystems around them (due to the extra energy, heat convection, increased entropy etc), in a surprisingly short timeframe. Because that's what life's good at. You disagree, giving reasons I find irrelevant here (a data centre won't make a dent in the average ocean temperature, and certainly won't make it "the highest-temperatu…
Ask yourself why you're on this site.
Is it to steadfastly argue positions far outside your domain expertise or engage in discourse and learn?
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's just unbelievable. To even survive the Deskstar era blows my mind. Not a single drive?
Argh trigger alert, I bought four of those in a raid 10. They even had the audacity to reject my warranty claim.
They sent me back refurbs that didn't work, I just gave up.