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Access "Storage rethinks power strategies"

Published: 20 Oct 2012
Tips for lowering the cost of storage support contracts

This article is part of the Vol. 6 No. 3 May 2007 issue of Tips for lowering the cost of storage support contracts

Storage power consumption has gotten short shrift compared to the server side of the data center--even from storage users themselves. "[Power consumption's] probably two or three down the list for most customers," says Greg Nightingale, manager of enterprise storage at Sirius Computer Solutions in San Antonio. "There's always some other overriding need, such as improving backups ... or improving performance." In fact, many users realize energy cost savings almost by accident. Seth Sladek, senior systems engineer at Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, MA, deployed one 3PAR InServ S800 storage server in July 2005 and another last spring to store roughly 25TB of data. Sladek's data center was filling up fast, and he felt thin provisioning would help him conserve space. But regarding power consumption, "I'd have to say that, honestly, I wasn't thinking about that per se," he says. Working with 3PAR, Sladek calculated he would have had to purchase, and consequently power and cool, 65 disk drives if he hadn't deployed the S800s. "Is it an overwhelming energy ... Access >>>

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