Storj and sustainability

[JoshieGarza]

I would love to see basic data of these surveys. I could accept that there are many NAS/server/computer already running and their power consumption could not be taken into account, but building the network with only a 15% of brand new HDDs is hard to believe.

[JWvdV]

@Alexey

Actually I have an idea - we may create a topic here and ask for the manufacturing date of each drive. This may be more interesting, because it would be more obvious are there repurposed drives used.

Many of us don’t buy new drives, but refurbished / abandoned drives. So for example, I’ve got three 10TB drives from 2017-2019 which were from a data warehouse with about 30000-40000 hours. So when do we see a drive as repurposed, since I bought it specifically for STORJ?

[Alexey]

I think the idea is not just “don’t buy anything just for Storj, use what you have now that will be online with or without Storj” because it’s more about the unpredictable profitability. In the case of using refurbished or used drives - that means those drives already exist, so they don’t add a footprint, at least in terms of manufacturing it. But yeah, if you’re going to build something specifically for Storj that wasn’t online, then that adds a footprint of running hardware that was offline before.

[Ruskiem]

@Alexey

But yeah, if you’re going to build something specifically for Storj that wasn’t online, then that adds a footprint of running hardware that was offline before.

is it adding footprint if that was online but with someone else?
and he/she decided don’t want it anymore
is it adding footprint if it was from aftermarket?

Coz i never bough anything new for storj, all used, refurbished.

[Alexey]

If it was online, then offline then back online, I do not think it is adding more footprint in that case. The damage already made, when it was manufactured and started the first time, now you just do not increase it even further by starting a new drive on top.

However, it’s all relative of course. When the previous owner had shutdown it, they reduced the footprint, when you started it back, you increased it back to may be the same level or less (for example - you used a low powered device, or this hardware has been already running).

So, ideally if you use already running hardware with already used disks, you do not increase a footprint too much just by starting the node.
It’s highly different from building a new datacenter.

[JWvdV]

@Alexey

However, it’s all relative of course. When the previous owner had shutdown it, they reduced the footprint, when you started it back, you increased it back to may be the same level or less (for example - you used a low powered device, or this hardware has been already running).

I think actually the carbon footprint of the production of all the stuff is negligible. It’s mainly the running costs and energy expenditure, attributing to the carbon footprint. Than it’s mainly the source of the energy what determines whether it’s contributing to the carbon footprint or not.

For example, if the source is sun panels: then you can advocate, the added footprint is zero, since most probably those sun panels would be used anyway. Although, if one sun panels was added at the moment of installation because of the expected higher energy expenditure for to STORJ…?

There are too many variables to take into account to make this estimation trustworthy.

[Alexey]

Also the production of said solar panels is contributing to the footprint too, it also requires to extract needed resources from the planet, which also maybe not recoverable.
Yes, too much variables.

I think the main idea here is to use already running hardware, not building a new datacenters to store always growing amount of data and this at least should not impact the environment more than it is already doing.