Building a Sustainable Cloud

The Wasted Potential of Unused Storage Devices

In recent years, the demand for digital storage has soared as data becomes increasingly central to both personal and enterprise needs. As we continue to generate vast amounts of data, the environmental impact and cost of creating new storage devices are growing concerns. This is where decentralized storage networks like Sia can offer a more sustainable and cost-effective solution, reducing the need for additional hardware while harnessing the untapped potential of existing, unused storage devices.

The Cost of Data Storage

To understand the positive impact that decentralized data storage can have on the environment, let’s first consider the burdens associated with current cloud storage solutions, which rely heavily on the manufacturing and distribution of new storage devices. The production of hard drives, solid-state drives, and other storage devices requires a substantial amount of raw materials to be manufactured into drives and transported to consumers. For example, manufacturing just 1 Gigabyte of Flash memory emits 0.16 kg of CO₂, contributing to the 20 million metric tonnes of CO₂ produced by the storage device manufacturing industry in 2021.¹ Data centers that house tens of thousands of disks are notorious for their energy consumption, with the global data center industry responsible for about 1–1.5% of global electricity use.² Additionally, e-waste from decommissioned storage devices contributes to environmental degradation, with 50 million metric tonnes of e-waste produced annually, of which only 20% is properly recycled.³

Since 2010, global internet traffic has expanded 20-fold, and the demand for digital services continues to rise, leading to greater energy consumption and emissions. Data centers and data transmission networks accounted for approximately 330 Mt of CO₂ emissions in 2020, equating to nearly 1% of energy-related GHG emissions.² Despite efforts to improve energy efficiency in data centers, the rapid growth of workloads continues to drive energy demands higher. With data centers emitting approximately 35 kg of CO₂ per Terabyte each year and the demand for cloud storage expected to exceed 5 billion Terabytes in 2030, the need for greener data storage solutions is greater now than ever before.⁵ By unlocking the potential of unused storage devices and maximizing their utilization, decentralized storage can help provide a path toward a more sustainable future

The Rise of Decentralized Storage

Enter decentralized storage, a system that shifts data storage from large centralized data centers owned by big corporations to a distributed network of individually operated storage providers. The Sia network is a prime example of this technology in action. With a network that spans the globe, Sia has begun to unlock the vast amounts of unused storage capacity sitting in basements and backrooms all over the world. By allowing anyone to rent out their unused storage, Sia has created a competitive marketplace that can provide secure and affordable cloud storage. By adopting this decentralized approach, networks such as Sia offer several key advantages over traditional data storage:

1. Encourages a Circular Economy for Hardware: By leveraging existing and underutilized storage capacity, decentralized storage networks help extend the life span of existing hardware. Additionally, this reduces the use of raw materials by effectively lowering the rate at which new storage devices must be produced. According to a study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, reusing existing devices provides sixteen times the economic value and four times the reduction of CO₂ emissions as recycling or shredding old storage devices.⁶ This can make the prospect of renting out unused storage capacity an enticing endeavor for individuals and hosting professionals alike.
2. Improved Resource Utilization: By tapping into sources of existing storage capacity and utilizing otherwise idle resources, decentralized storage networks can help increase the overall efficiency of global data storage.
3. Enhanced Data Security and Privacy: The distributed nature of decentralized storage networks makes them inherently more secure than traditional cloud services. Instead of storing user data in a central location, these networks spread it across multiple nodes, making it much harder for attackers to gain access and limiting the scope of their attacks. This is particularly relevant given the growing concerns about ransomware attacks and their ability to target even cloud storage providers, encrypting their customer's data and holding it hostage.⁷ ⁸ Decentralized storage networks also employ strong encryption and cryptographic techniques to further bolster data security and privacy. For example, using a method known as Reed-Solomon erasure encoding, files are split and then encrypted using ChaCha20 before being distributed across the network.⁹

Sia’s Path to Sustainability

To put into perspective the environmental impact that decentralized storage could have, consider that every terabyte of unused storage made available on Sia eliminates the need for a new hard drive to be manufactured and distributed. By reusing old hard drives, it’s possible to avoid the extensive environmental toll of extracting rare earth elements like neodymium, which are essential for manufacturing new drives.¹⁰ Additionally, the growing issue of e-waste — estimated at 50 million metric tonnes annually — could be mitigated by reducing the demand for new storage devices and extending the life of existing hardware.³ To put that into perspective, if we were to measure the annual amount of e-waste produced globally in hard drives, 50 million tonnes would be the equivalent of 102,065,879,629 standard 4" HDDs.

For enterprises, the ability to offload storage needs to a decentralized network can also mean reduced capital expenditure on hardware and lower operational costs for maintaining data centers. Combined with Sia’s strong encryption and competitive pricing, this presents a compelling case for businesses looking to improve efficiency while reducing their environmental impact.

Final Thoughts

As we continue to navigate the era of big data, the need for sustainable and cost-effective storage solutions has become more pressing. Traditional storage solutions are proving unsustainable due to the rising environmental costs of building and operating ever-larger data centers. However, by leveraging decentralized storage networks like Sia, we can find a way forward that reduces the need for new hardware, lowers energy consumption, and mitigates the environmental impact of digital storage. All while providing users with a secure and affordable solution for their storage needs.

Citations:

1. Tannu, S. & Nair, A. (2023). The Dirty Secret of SSDs: Embodied Carbon. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2207.10793
2. International Energy Agency. (2021). Data centres and data transmission networks. International Energy Agency. https://www.iea.org/energy-system/buildings/data-centres-and-data-transmission-networks
3. World Economic Forum. (2021). The world’s data explained: How much we’re producing and where it’s all stored. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/05/world-data-produced-stored-global-gb-tb-zb/
4. Broadmeadow, M. S. J., & Matthews, R. W. (1999). Forests, carbon and climate change: The UK contribution. Forestry, 72(3), 237–248. https://doi.org/10.1093/forestry/72.3.237
5. Al Kez, D., Foley, A. M., Laverty, D., Furszyfer Del Rio, D., & Sovacool, B. (2022). Exploring the sustainability challenges facing digitalization and internet data centers. Journal of Cleaner Production, 371, 133633. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.133633
6. Walzberg, J., Burton, R., Zhao, F., Frost, K. Muller, Carpenter, A., S. & Heath, G. (2021). An investigation of hard-disk drive circularity accounting for socio-technical dynamics and data uncertainty. Journal of Resources, Conservation & Recycling. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.106102
7. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. (2022, February 9). AA22–040A: Alert (AA22–040A) — Understanding and mitigating Russian state-sponsored cyber threats to U.S. critical infrastructure. CISA. https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa22-040a
8. Toulas, B. (2023, August 23). Hosting firm says it lost all customer data after ransomware attack. Bleeping Computer. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hosting-firm-says-it-lost-all-customer-data-after-ransomware-attack/
9. Sia Foundation. (n.d.). File processing. In Renting storage. Sia Docs. https://docs.sia.tech/renting/renting-storage#file-processing
10. Nguyen, R. T., Diaz, L. A., Imholte, D. D., & Lister, T. E. (2017). Economic assessment for recycling critical metals from hard disk drives using a comprehensive recovery process. Idaho National Laboratory. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317773800_Economic_Assessment_for_Recycling_Critical_Metals_From_Hard_Disk_Drives_Using_a_Comprehensive_Recovery_Process
11. Seagate. (n.d.). IronWolf hard drive. Seagate Technology. https://www.seagate.com/ca/en/products/nas-drives/ironwolf-hard-drive/?sku=ST4000VN006

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