Sustainable Data Storage – A Complete Guide

Storage sustainability has become a hot topic. Creating a sustainable data storage environment is high on the list of objectives for CEOs, data storage managers, stockholders, and even customers. They are increasingly more aware that a green data center can be important in protecting and sustaining resources. In this LTO program article, we will examine this topic including:  what is sustainable data storage, the carbon footprint of data storage, green computing, the green cloud, e-waste management, energy efficiency and the role that LTO technology can play for sustainable data storage.

What is Sustainable Data Storage?

The phrase “Sustainable-Data-Storage” may be familiar but what it means may not be entirely understood. So, here is a basic definition of sustainable data storage: Store data, manage it and deliver it while being energy efficient with minimal impact on the environment.

A TechTarget article explains “Storing ever-increasing amounts of data requires electricity to run the storage systems, route the data between systems, back up and replicate the data, and provide a safe and functional environment in which to manage it. As they collect more data, organizations need more resources to maintain their storage operations.” As data volumes continue to propagate at astounding rates and businesses keep data for longer time periods to help address product planning and customer demands, the subject of storage sustainability becomes more significant. The article emphasizes, “Sustainable data storage minimally affects the environment and does not contribute to the depletion of natural resources.”

A structure to help realize and measure how sustainably a group is operating is called: Environment, Social and Governance or ESG. As noted by TechTarget, an ESG framework is “used to assess an organization’s business practices and performance on various sustainability and ethical issues. It also provides a way to measure business risks and opportunities in those areas.” Now we have an understanding of what sustainable data storage is, let’s dive a little deeper and discuss the Carbon Footprint of Data Storage.

The Carbon Footprint of Data Storage

Where do greenhouse gas emissions come from? Our World in Data reports that greenhouse gas emissions are measured in tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalents and that “Electricity and heat production are the largest contributors to global emissions. This is followed by transport, manufacturing, construction (largely cement and similar materials), and agriculture.”

The quest for green computing is worldwide. A Deloitte.com blog discusses the carbon footprint in the United Kingdom and notes that “businesses are facing rising pressures to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and regulatory scrutiny is quickly increasing. For example, in 2019, the UK signed into law a commitment to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 and by September 2022, over 90% of GDP was covered by some form of net zero target.”

A report by ESG called Sustainability Benefits of Deploying LTO Technology in Modern IT Ecosystems explains that “carbon dioxide (CO2) is the primary greenhouse gas emitted when producing energy.” And, that data centers “account for up to 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions (as compared to other industries), which trap heat in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere as a byproduct of burning solid waste, trees, and other biological materials, as well as fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil). These are often used to produce the energy required to power data centers that support modern businesses.”

The ESG report goes on to discuss the data explosion and how various storage technologies can affect carbon emissions. Side note: the report shows that in an environment modelling environmental, social and governance factors, a 6.5x reduction in CO2 emissions can result from running approximately 500 TB of less active data on tape versus HDD.  More on the role of tape in the green data center down below.

Green Computing and Energy Efficiency

What is a green computing data center? You could surmise that a green data center makes efficient use of energy resources and according to TechTarget, “A green data center is a repository for the storage, management and dissemination of data in which the mechanical, lighting, electrical and computer systems are designed to maximize energy efficiency and minimize environmental impact.”

What is a green cloud environment?

Open Access Government defines it this way: “Green cloud refers to a sustainable way of cloud computing. It reduces energy demand and saves money while keeping an eye on environmental issues at the same time.” It explains that “Moving traditional IT infrastructure to the cloud is beneficial for the environment in several ways; primarily, it reduces the number of physical servers and increases the average utilization of available computing units. If cloud providers do it right, a measurable impact on a company’s CO2 footprint can be achieved.”

The article states that “sustainability and responsibility are becoming the main points of differentiation in the marketplace for global hyperscalers like AWS, Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure and European cloud companies like OVH.” Sustainability objectives can be important for businesses of all sizes.

TechTarget explains that “green clouds can also contribute to broader environmental, social and governance programs at the cloud vendors themselves and companies that use their services.” TechTarget provides examples of some of the technologies and strategies used in green data centers:

• Minimized building footprints
• Low-emission building materials, carpets and paints
• Sustainable landscaping
• E-waste recycling
• Catalytic converters on backup generators
• Alternative energy, such as photovoltaic technology, heat pumps and evaporative cooling technology
• Hybrid or electric vehicles

Implementing green data center strategies like those outlined above can be a substantial investment but can also produce considerable benefits that contribute to sustainable data storage agendas as noted by TechTarget which include:

• Lower long-term operating costs
• Reduced space requirements
• Lower carbon emissions
• Decreased water use
• Reduced waste output
• Lower electricity consumption
• Use of renewable and sustainable data center resources

Is Energy Being Used Sustainably?

How does a green data center determine if they are using their resources efficiently and sustainably? Two performance metrics have been developed to measure energy usage and sustainability. TechTarget describes them this way:

Power Usage Effectiveness, or PUE, “measures the power consumption of a data center. It is the ratio of the power provided to the data center divided by the power the equipment in the data center uses. The goal is to have the ratio come as close as possible to one, which indicates effective power usage.”

Carbon Usage Effectiveness, or CUE, “helps confirm whether a data center has attained its sustainability goals. It is the ratio of carbon dioxide emissions the data center generates divided by the energy consumption of data center equipment.” The objective is to get the lowest value possible which would show that the data center is controlling its carbon footprint.

To achieve these metrics, green data center technologies and strategies need commitment, investment and caution. As noted in a recent LTO BlogBytes article, the power needed to run data centers may be running out: “Marc Ganzi, CEO of DigitalBridge, warned in a recent datacenterdynamics.com article that data centers could run out of power in the next two years. Ganzi stated if you think about how much power remains on the US grid, we’re down to less than 7GW … we’re probably down to less than 2.8 to 3GW in Europe. It’s power transmission and distribution that are constrained.” He states that AI can be part of the solution to run more efficiently, and, hence, more sustainably.

As indicated in the article above, AI usage can make a considerable difference with data center energy consumption and costs. For example, white space cooling optimization is discussed in a Forbes article that “uses an advanced machine-learning model to analyze the effect of cooling on specific areas of a data center, creating an influence map to limit energy use to only what’s necessary. AI engines like this can make a significant difference to a data center’s energy costs.” The article boasts that AI engines are “one of the reasons the new ‘Greenergy’ data center in Estonia is the most energy efficient in the Baltic region.”

As we can see, striving to be green and efficiently using resources are key pieces to the sustainability puzzle. Managing E-waste in data storage is another.

E-Waste Management in Data Storage

First of all, let’s make sure we understand what e-waste is. According to ewaste.com “E-waste is any electrical or electronic equipment that’s been discarded. E-waste is electronic products that are unwanted, not working, and nearing or at the end of their useful life. Computers, televisions, VCRs, stereos, copiers, and fax machines … everyday electronic products.”

The challenge of determining the best methods for electronic disposal has been going on for decades. The ewaste.com article explains, “While above ground, modern electronics are safe to use and be around. However, most electronics contain some form of toxic materials, including beryllium, cadmium, mercury, and lead, which pose serious environmental risks to our soil, water, air, and wildlife.” Therefore, the disposal of e-waste products needs careful planning and consideration. More on what can be done to manage e-waste below, but first: How prevalent is e-waste?

According to phys.org, “The amount of e-waste produced this decade could reach as much as 5 million metric tonnes (~5.51M US Tons) … around 1,000 times more e-waste than was produced in 2023.” It is predicted that the rise of AI could accelerate the amount of e-waste due to the turnover of servers and data storage in data centers to accommodate AI computational demands. Technological advancement is important to improve our quality of work and life itself but should be coupled with e-waste management.

What can be done to manage e-waste?

As noted in the phys.org article, “Governments are tasked with setting standards for e-waste collection and recycling. These help ensure that e-waste is disposed of safely and efficiently. The development of recycling technologies is an area where government investment is crucial, as innovative solutions can improve safety and efficiency.” In addition, donating electronics for further use, refurbishing, reselling, and as mentioned, recycling, are all important vehicles for e-waste management. Regarding recycling, it’s important to note that LTO tape cartridges and media are built with 99% recyclable materials to help attain a low carbon footprint and minimized e-waste.

This leads on to the next topic about LTO technology and how it is an important asset in the quest for sustainable data storage.

LTO Technology and its Role in Sustainable Data Storage

If you aren’t familiar with the latest generation of LTO technology here’s a quick reminder:  The current LTO technology is generation-9 with a cartridge capacity of up to 45 TBs of compressed data. As you will see below, LTO tape can help reach green data storage objectives. In addition, LTO technology can enhance cybersecurity by safely storing critical information with offline air-gapped data protection. See how here.

Businesses are utilizing tape data storage to safely store information and to help reduce energy consumption and carbon footprints. ESG explains in the report Sustainability Benefits of Deploying LTO Technology in Modern IT Ecosystems that “organizations could save on energy consumption, CO2 emission, and disposal costs in their production storage environments by adding tape as a storage tier and replacing spinning HDDs with tape media for the less active data.” ESG emphasized that, “storage arrays emit considerably more CO2 annually than tape libraries. By migrating data that is less active from disk drives to tape drives, organizations can achieve significant reductions in CO2 emission.”

The figure below shows an ESG comparison of CO2 emissions from a storage array and a tape library. As mentioned above, ESG found a reduction of 6.5x in CO2 emissions for organizations using a tape  solution versus a disk storage array.

If you would like to see how your own data storage costs measure up you can use the LTO TCO and Sustainability calculator to compare the storage costs for tape, disk and cloud.

Conclusions about Sustainable Data Storage

The future for sustainable data storage looks bright. More businesses are focused on attaining green data centers and efficient data storage than ever before. For more information on how LTO tape technology can help achieve low cost sustainable data storage, visit the LTO Sustainability page.

Orginal:lto.org