This reads like an episode of The Thick of It[0]. If it weren't real, it'd be funny.
As to the efficacy of the recommendation:
From The Verge's coverage[1]:
"The Environment Agency didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry from The Verge about how much water it thought deleting files might save, nor how much water data centers that store files or train AI use in the UK’s drought-affected areas."
And Tom's Hardware's[2]:
"Perhaps more pertinently, the advice rings hollow because it's likely not very sensible. While it's true that data centers do consume large amounts of water through evaporative cooling (where it's used), the vast majority of this power draw comes from CPU and GPU computation, not the storage of pictures and emails. Once the data is stored, the storage devices generate very little heat and are often spun down (placed into low- or no-power states) and called upon only when needed."
Even a decade of emails don't add up to very much storage unless you have lots of large attachments.
An average person's entire archive would likely easily fit on a small 64 microsd card. Which is like $10 bucks...
wkat4242 · 16h ago
True my email from the last 15 years fits in 9GB. And that's with attachments.
Also this is data at rest mostly that doesn't get accessed. Deleting it would save maybe a square millimetre of spinning rust somewhere but not meaningful amounts of power (that rust still has to spin)
refulgentis · 13h ago
In all seriousness, I wonder how much data centers use HDDs still (I pray this nerdsnipes someone...)
deodar · 11h ago
All the cold data is on spinning rust, and most of the data at large scales is cold. Much of the warm data is still on HDDs too, fronted by a flash or RAM cache.
The storage densities are constantly increasing to keep costs low. SMR drives have significantly pushed up the achievable densities at the cost of write performance which matters little for cold data. The 1PB/node mark was breached a few years ago.
Few players have the budget to store these volumes of data on flash, especially since you're always erasure coding for redundancy which adds anywhere from 50-100% storage overhead, depending on other tradeoffs.
HDDs are a remarkable invention and not going anywhere soon. Heck, I think tapes aren't dead either.
sieste · 17h ago
How about GCHQ make a start and delete all mails and other data they have collected about me?
As to the efficacy of the recommendation:
From The Verge's coverage[1]:
"The Environment Agency didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry from The Verge about how much water it thought deleting files might save, nor how much water data centers that store files or train AI use in the UK’s drought-affected areas."
And Tom's Hardware's[2]:
"Perhaps more pertinently, the advice rings hollow because it's likely not very sensible. While it's true that data centers do consume large amounts of water through evaporative cooling (where it's used), the vast majority of this power draw comes from CPU and GPU computation, not the storage of pictures and emails. Once the data is stored, the storage devices generate very little heat and are often spun down (placed into low- or no-power states) and called upon only when needed."
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thick_of_It
1: https://www.theverge.com/science/758275/drought-delete-files...
2: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/uk-government-ine...
An average person's entire archive would likely easily fit on a small 64 microsd card. Which is like $10 bucks...
Also this is data at rest mostly that doesn't get accessed. Deleting it would save maybe a square millimetre of spinning rust somewhere but not meaningful amounts of power (that rust still has to spin)
The storage densities are constantly increasing to keep costs low. SMR drives have significantly pushed up the achievable densities at the cost of write performance which matters little for cold data. The 1PB/node mark was breached a few years ago.
Few players have the budget to store these volumes of data on flash, especially since you're always erasure coding for redundancy which adds anywhere from 50-100% storage overhead, depending on other tradeoffs.
HDDs are a remarkable invention and not going anywhere soon. Heck, I think tapes aren't dead either.