Hi all,

At my institution we're debating between using cloud or local storage for
our digitized assets. [1]

There have been a lot of articles in the media over the past few years
about massive energy consumption by large-scale cloud data centers. [2]

But, it's not like a locally-managed EMC Isilon doesn't use electricity
either.

Has anyone attempted to compare the environmental impact of cloud v. local
storage in some quantifiable way? While an AWS data center is obviously
going to use a lot more energy than a local server, is it more efficient in
terms of per-TB energy usage?

Thanks,
Eben English
Boston Public Library

1. Currently around 30 TB (mostly images), but projected to grow to ~150 TB
(images and video) in the next 2 years.
2.
https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/energy/greenpeace-accuses-aws-fueling-virginia-data-center-growth-dirty-energy