Wouldn’t running something like this 24/7 cause a substantial energy consumption? Costs of electricity being one thing, carbon footprint an another. Do we really want such a setup running in each household in addition to X other devices?
Are you saying it’s fine to drive a huge truck if you’re single and just need to get around the block to buy a pack of eggs, just because the emissions are nothing compared to those required for making that smaller, more efficient car that you could buy instead?
Of course this is a contrived example that ignores the used vehicle market or the possibility of walking around the block.
Obviously depends on the actual usage, and parent's specific setup, lots of motherboards/CPUs/GPUs/RAM allow you to tune the frequencies and allows you to downclock almost anything. Finally, we have no idea about the energy source in this case, could be they live in a country with lots of wind and solar power, if we're being charitable.
Because solar wind and hydro have no impact on the environment at all. Or nuclear.
I wish people would understand that waste is waste. Even less waste is still waste.
(I don't argue for fossil fuels here, mind you.)
Plus, the countries have shared grids. Any kWh you use can't be used by someone else, so may come from coal when they do, for all you know. It's a false rationalization.
> I wish people would understand that waste is waste. Even less waste is still waste.
So if I have 10 mining rigs connected to the state power grid, what the source of that energy has matters nothing for the environment? If I use a contract that 100% guarantees it comes from solar, it has the same environmental impact as if I use a cheaper contract that guarantees 100% coal power?
I'm not sure if I misunderstand what you're saying, or you're misunderstanding what I said before, but something along the lines got lost in transmission I think.
> I wish people would understand that waste is waste
I think the point is that the configuration from the post can easily run as low as maybe 30-40W on idle, but as high as a couple hundred depending on utilization. An off-the-shelf NAS probably spikes at most in the ~35W range, with idle/spindle-off utilization in the 10W range (I'm using my 4-bay Synology DS920+ as a reference). Normally the biggest contributor to NAS energy usage is the number of HDDs, so the more you add, the more it consumes, but in this configuration the CPU, the RAM, and the GPU are all "oversized" for the NAS purpose.
While reusing parts for longer helps a lot for carbon footprint of the material itself, running that machine 24/7/365 is definitely more CO2-heavy w.r.t. electricity usage than an off-the-shelf NAS. And additional entropy in the environment in the form of heat is still additional entropy, whether it comes from coal or solar panels.
1. You affect the mix! Your rigs create new solar and decommission coal plants! The world is cleaner!
2. You claim a "clean slice" of the existing mix. You feel good because you use only solar, but MRI machines still use power, so their mix is now "dirtier" without changing the actual state of the world.
In real systems, it's probably a combination of the above. I assume our decisions only meaningfully matter by exerting market pressures over longer timescales.