Global increases in carbon emissions are allegedly becoming a growing concern surrounding AI development. A report from Blocks and Files reveals that Seagate investigated three of the most popular data storage solutions based on carbon emission output. Out of the three options, SSDs, hard drives, and LTO tapes, hard drives were found to be the most carbon-efficient.
The three storage types were benchmarked under three categories: Embodied carbon by product, Embodied carbon per TB, and Embodied carbon per TB per year. SSDs produced the most carbon emissions, producing 4,915 kg CO², 160 CO² per TB, and 32 CO² per TB per year. LTO tapes came in second place, producing 48 kg CO², 2.66 kg CO² per TB, and <0.6 kg CO² per TB per year. Hard drives won out, producing 29.7 kg CO², <1 CO² per TB, and <0.2 CO² per TB per year.
Concerns about carbon emissions have intensified due to the rapid growth of AI and the substantial amount of raw computing power required to run large language models. Data centers are becoming one of the most energy-intensive sectors of the digital economy, with power demand projected to rise by as much as 165% by 2030. However, some have given up on the climate conversation altogether; former Google CEO Eric Schmidt believes that it will be impossible to achieve climate goals due to a lack of organization within the industry.
Seagate's investigation reportedly concluded with three pillars for lowering carbon emissions: Increasing advances in liquid/immersion cooling and HVAC systems, a commitment to life cycle extension and circularity (through activities such as refurbishing products, and reusing products where possible), and companies sharing accountability of emissions across the entire datacenter ecosystem.
Seagate's analysis suggests hard drives still have plenty of life ahead of them, and won't be going the way of the dodo as may might have expected. Seagate is leading by example, by continuing to build more advanced hard drives to meet the demands of modern data centers. Seagate recently announced its new Mozaic 3+ hard drives, utilizing HAMR technology, featuring a 36TB offering.
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