We're all swimming in data these days, with the explosion of structured and unstructured data driven by the increased adoption of AI, IOT, and Big Data applications among others. There has been an equal explosion in underlying storage technologies, with flash, persistent memory, SSDs and the like driving incredible storage capacity and flexibility.

A single server rack unit of storage today handles 1 TB of data. That's a lot of photos!

Have you considered the data center ramifications for these dense storage platforms? While storage historically has been a lower power consumption, static application, this is not the case anymore. Here are peak power draws per rack unit from a variety of storage platforms:

So what does this all mean? For a fully-packed 45U cabinet of modern storage servers, you should plan for a minimum of 10 kW and ideally 20 kW of power draw. Most data centers are only built to support 3-5 kW per cabinet, so be sure to consider the power and cooling requirements!

If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact us at info@colovore.com or 408-330-9290.

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