Re:An off-grid social network
by lolc on Thursday April 06, 2017 @11:31AM
(#14051456)
I disagree. Google uses 1/4GW worldwide and that's less than a watt per user.
[ Parent
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Where does that number come from?
One data center * 24 backup generators * 3 MW each = 72 MW per data center. Four of those = 288 MW > 1/4GW.
Google has more than three data centers.
Ah yes, that number is from 2011, published by Google. Can't find the original. But it was widely reported[1].
Assuming that they're doubling energy consumption every year they'd have reached 8GW in 2016. That's 8W per user if we assume 1 billion users. Energy usage of a Raspberry is not insignificant relative to even this.
Doing things at scale is vastly more efficient. And only a subset of Google services can be relegated to a Raspberry. Even if you host your own mails, are you ready to ditch the Google search index and Youtube?
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/technology/google-details-...