September 5, 2008 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) – Dedicated IT hosting company Memset (http://www.memset.com) has suggested that “ripping and replacing” servers that are over 3 years old is ‘a must’, it was reported recently. According to the company, “sweating” servers is “neither economically nor environmentally sound” and changing them will both save money and help the environment.
The company suggests “an average £1,000 ($1,763) 1U rack-mount server bought 3-4 years ago probably ‘cost’ (in terms of materials, manufacture and distribution) about 1,500kWh to make and uses 120W at moderate load, which yearly is 1,050kWh, or at least 1,500kWh when data centre cooling is taken into account”. The company suggests the latest “green” servers use as little as 80W and conclude “swapping to energy efficient servers will save 400kWh/year in electricity and get you 2-4 times more performance”.
Memset goes on to suggest that in the past eighteen months the power requirements of rackmount servers have halved while their performance has doubled. Thus replacing a 3+ year old server cuts power bills by more than by half and doubles workload capacity. An alternative is to outsource server infrastructure through a carbon neutral IT host “such as Memset or Rackspace”, thus improving performance and reducing environmental impact.
Most hardware vendors do a very good job of recycling servers (less than 2% going to land fill), and charities such as Computer Aid (http://www.computeraid.org/) can refurbish and give machines to Africa where they are put to very good and efficient use, so the environmental argument is sound as well (provided responsible disposal of old equipment). Memset has recently started sending its outdated IT kit to Computer Aid International. Tony Roberts, the charity's CEO said “We desperately need to increase donations to meet demand from African schools and hospitals and hope that businesses across the UK will realize that by partnering with Computer Aid they not only will become WEEE compliant but they can help stop over two million unwanted PCs going to waste.”
Established in 2002, Memset is a dedicated web hosting company whose Miniserver™ technology has “enabled Memset to be recognized as the leading developer and supplier of virtual dedicated server systems in the UK”. It is the UK’s first Carbon Neutral ISP. Computer Aid International provides high quality, professionally refurbished computers for reuse in education, health and not-for-profit organizations in developing countries.
