Microsoft are looking at putting datacenters under the ocean, which sounds like a really good idea to cool them but I can’t help but think a couple decades from now it’s going to start causing us problems

  • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    1 year ago

    No one does maintenance on the server farms. It costs more money to send someone in than to let the parts slowly die until the farm no longer is economically viable. Once that happens, you sell the whole farm to a recycler.

        • grue@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          The most sustainable option would also always be the cheapest option, if regulations were properly designed to correct for externalized costs. We should strive for that.

          • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            It might be the most sustainable option.

            Building a server farm that needs to be maintained means building out space for people to maintain the farm, increasing the space and requiring additional cooling to make the farm able to be serviced by humans.

            It also means that less efficient hardware gets used for a longer period of time, driving up electricity costs.

            And as long as the e-waste is recycled, in which it is easier to recycle an entire farm rather than consumer electronics, what is the issue?

            • CaptainAniki@lemmy.flight-crew.org
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              No it isn’t. What DC do you work at? We recycle hardware as much as fucking possible until its worthless and then it’s sold to anyone who wants it in the company first and then the rest is sold on ebay and craigslist.

              • snowbell@beehaw.org
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                0
                ·
                1 year ago

                Ahhh, so this is why you are so angry in this thread. You’re the competition. Not exactly an unbiased third party.

                • silentashes@lemm.ee
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  0
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  @snowbell having fun #trolling ? Or just a bit lacking in holding the #environment as a core personal worldview/value-set ? If you did, I think you might immediately have understood— as I did — that the other person has 1. a strong ethos around the environment, which dovetails with 2. their strong sense of professionalism.

                  It’s the difference between friendly competition whom one actually can RESPECT (even when you disagree), vs seeing the other party as a literal piece of turd-pile because the treat their stakeholders like turds.

                  M$ is extremely well known for being the latter.

                  Also, I doubt that someone at the engineer-level (low on the totem pole) is seriously going to give two f***s about their multinational richass CEOs or investors “competing” with each other.

                  I sure as sh*t wouldn’t. It’s just a money game. Zero loyalty

                  (as any corporate drone knows (see also Dilbert comic strip).)

                  • snowbell@beehaw.org
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    1 year ago

                    Datacenters are already bad for the environment and all available evidence points to this being a better option for the environment. Believe me I thought it was the stupidiest shit when they first announced this but I’ve had years to think about it now. Just because something is made by a horrible company doesn’t mean that it iself must be horrible.

                    Sorry for not participating in your corporate drone culture, loyalty actually matters to me. This comment made me cringe.

      • Parsnip8904@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I mean not really because the computers in the farm at this point are recycled to be sold as seperate used units.