Greener storage kit is not enough

As storage vendors gather today for Storage Expo in London, Chris James of Overland Storage argues that with the data explosion at many firms continuing they must do more than just buy the most energy efficient kit

Being green might be the latest trend in business, but just buying environmentally friendly storage products doesn't mean you are doing all you can to help the environment – indeed you could be doing more harm than good. Assessing how you can reduce the carbon footprint of your IT and storage infrastructure needs to go much deeper than that, and must run through both the procurement and lifecycle of a product.

There are many environmentally friendly products on the market today - from cars to light bulbs – but frequently the purchasing decision is just part of the process required to cut your carbon emissions. Take the Toyota Prius as an example. It may be marketed as a green vehicle, but buying it is just one step towards "doing your bit" – how you use the car is far more important to your overall carbon footprint. Equally, buying three Toyota Prius’ doesn’t make you three times more environmentally friendly either!

The same equation applies to your firm's storage infrastructure. If you are really looking to make your IT department green, assessing the procurement process of storage products needs to be one of your first priorities. But many people are unaware that in some cases, manufacturing of kit can account for a large percentage of its carbon emissions. So if you are simply buying a new storage product because it is labelled "green" and not because you need the additional capabilities or capacity, not only is this an unnecessary expense but it also means more carbon emissions are produced in the process.

Understanding this aspect of the product lifecycle is therefore extremely important in assessing the green credentials of a purchase.

Similarly, as with the Prius, the area where real carbon savings can be made is how you use the storage devices. Efficiency and being green go hand in hand and what many people fail to realise is that just by being more efficient, carbon emissions attributed to a product can be reduced. The deployment of a product is therefore just as important as buying something labelled as green. If you buy an environmentally friendly car and then make unnecessary journeys to drive one mile down the road everyday, it is not being used in the most efficient or environmentally friendly way.

This can be applied to storage strategies. Using the right piece of kit for different requirements will ensure the storage lifecycle is made as efficient as possible. For example, writing to the densest possible RAID array for critical storage needs will ensure capacity is maximised and that additional products are not purchased unnecessarily. This will go some way to reducing emissions from manufacturing as a result.

For back up purposes, using disk with VTL capability will improve efficiencies and make the best use of space. When archiving, the greenest option is tape as it uses less power and produces a lower heat output. It is especially efficient when storing data which doesn't need to be accessed frequently. In contrast, using disk for archiving does more harm to the environment as disks are kept spinning constantly, churning out more heat and using more power.

No one storage solution is going to make you green, but if purchases are made sensibly and products used in the right way it could make you greener.

Chris James is marketing director for EMEA at Overland Storage.