skip to main content
10.1145/3593856.3595896acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PageshotosConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article
Public Access

Degrading Data to Save the Planet

Published: 22 June 2023 Publication History

Abstract

Storage capacity demand is projected to grow exponentially in the coming decade and so will its contribution to the overall carbon footprint of computing devices. In recent years, cloud providers and device vendors have substantially reduced their carbon impact through improved power consumption and product distribution. However, by 2030, the manufacturing of flash-based storage devices will account for 1.7% of carbon emissions in the world. Therefore, reducing production-related carbon emissions of storage is key to sustainability in computing devices.
We present Sustainability-Oriented Storage (SOS), a new host-device co-design for personal storage devices, which opportunistically improves storage sustainability by: (1) targeting widely-produced flash-based personal storage devices; (2) reducing hardware production through optimizing bit density in existing materials, up to 50%; and (3) exploiting an underutilized gap between the effective lifespan of personal devices and longer lifespan of their underlying flash.
SOS automatically stores low-priority files, occupying most personal storage capacities, on high-density flash memories, currently designated for nearline storage. To avoid data loss, low-priority files are allowed to slightly degrade in quality over time. Switching to high-density memories, which maximize production material utilization, reduces the overall carbon footprint of personal storage devices.

References

[1]
Robert U Ayres. Life cycle analysis: A critique. Resources, conservation and recycling, 14(3--4):199--223, 1995.
[2]
Udit Gupta, Mariam Elgamal, Gage Hills, Gu-Yeon Wei, Hsien-Hsin S. Lee, David Brooks, and Carole-Jean Wu. ACT: Designing sustainable computer systems with an architectural carbon modeling tool. In ACM Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture, ISCA, 2022.
[3]
Udit Gupta, Young Geun Kim, Sylvia Lee, Jordan Tse, Hsien-Hsin S Lee, Gu-Yeon Wei, David Brooks, and Carole-Jean Wu. Chasing carbon: The elusive environmental footprint of computing. IEEE Micro, 42(4):37--47, 2022.
[4]
Erik Brunvand, Donald Kline, and Alex K Jones. Dark silicon considered harmful: A case for truly green computing. In IEEE International Green and Sustainable Computing Conference, IGSC, 2018.
[5]
Prashant Nagapurkar and Sujit Das. Economic and embodied energy analysis of integrated circuit manufacturing processes. Sustainable Computing: Informatics and Systems, 35:100771, 2022.
[6]
Apple environmental progress report. https://www.apple.com/environment/, 2022. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[7]
Samsung Electro-Mechanics. 2021--22 sustainability report. https://m.samsungsem.com/resources/file/global/sustainability/report/SEM_SR2021_EN.pdf, 2022. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[8]
Swamit Tannu and Prashant J Nair. The dirty secret of SSDs: Embodied carbon. In Workshop on Sustainable Computer Systems Design and Implementation, HotCarbon, 2022.
[9]
Apple product environmental report iphone 14. https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/iphone/iPhone_14_PER_Sept2022.pdf, 2022. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[10]
Blocks & Files. Disk drives will still store more than half of the world's data in 2024. https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/05/14/idc-disk-drives-will-store-over-half-world-data-in-2024/, May. 2020. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[11]
Forbes. 2022 flash memory summit announcements. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomcoughlin/2022/08/13/2022-flash-memory-summit-announcements/?sh=2ffa73a11bf0, Aug. 2022. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[12]
The World Bank. CO2 emissions (metric tons per capita). https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC, May. 2020. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[13]
R Fontana and G Decad. The 2018 storage landscape-an 11 year perspective (2008--2019): LTO tape media HDD NAND, 2018.
[14]
Tom's Hardware. Solidigm Introduces Industry-First PLC NAND for Higher Storage Densities. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/solidigm-plc-nand-ssd, 2022. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[15]
Tech Insights. Upcoming new 3D NAND TLC devices: Samsung 176l & 238l, sk hynix 176l, kioxia/wd 162l. https://www.techinsights.com/blog/upcoming-new-3d-nand-tlc-devices-samsung-176l-238l-sk-hynix-176l-kioxiawd-162l, 2022. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[16]
KIOXIA advances development of UFS ver. 3.1 embedded flash memory devices with QLC technology. https://americas.kioxia.com/en-us/business/news/2022/memory-20220119-1.html, 2022. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[17]
Akira Goda. Recent progress on 3D NAND flash technologies. Electronics, 10(24):3156, 2021.
[18]
Jeongdong Choe. Comparison of 20 nm & 10 nm-class 2D Planar NAND and 3D V-NAND Architecture. Flash Memory Summit, 2015. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[19]
ANANDTech. Micron: Shipments of 3D QLC for SSDs Nearly Double QoQ as Wafer Starts Cut Again. https://www.skhynix.com/pr/pressReleaseView.do/?seq=2793&offset=1, 2019. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[20]
Rino Micheloni, Luca Crippa, Cristian Zambelli, and Piero Olivo. Architectural and integration options for 3D NAND flash memories. Computers, 6(3), 2017.
[21]
Laura M Grupp, John D Davis, and Steven Swanson. The bleak future of NAND flash memory. In USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies, FAST, 2012.
[22]
Andromachi Chatzieleftheriou, Ioan Stefanovici, Dushyanth Narayanan, Benn Thomsen, and Antony Rowstron. Could cloud storage be disrupted in the next decade? In Proceedings of the 12th USENIX Conference on Hot Topics in Storage and File Systems, HotStorage, 2020.
[23]
Kioxia. How 3D flash memory stacks up. https://americas.kioxia.com/content/dam/kioxia/en-us/business/memory/asset/Electronic-Design-FAQ-KIOXIA.pdf, 2020. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[24]
TechRadar. 1000tb SSDs could become mainstream by 2030 as samsung plans 1000-layer NAND. https://www.techradar.com/news/1000tb-ssds-could-become-mainstream-by-2030-as-samsung-plans-1000-layer-nand, 2022. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[25]
Cristian Zambelli, Rino Micheloni, and Piero Olivo. Reliability challenges in 3D NAND flash memories. In IEEE International Memory Workshop, IMW. IEEE, 2019.
[26]
Semiconductor Engineering. 3D NAND's vertical scaling race. https://semiengineering.com/3d-nands-vertical-scaling-race/, 2020. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[27]
K Parat and A Goda. Scaling trends in NAND flash. In IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, IEDM, 2018.
[28]
Alessandro S Spinelli, Christian Monzio Compagnoni, and Andrea L Lacaita. Reliability of NAND flash memories: Planar cells and emerging issues in 3d devices. Computers, 6(2):16, 2017.
[29]
Samsung Support. Consumer storage warranty. https://semiconductor.samsung.com/consumer-storage/support/warranty/. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[30]
Hynix SSDs. SSD warranty. https://ssd.skhynix.com/warranty/. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[31]
Stathis Maneas, Kaveh Mahdaviani, Tim Emami, and Bianca Schroeder. Operational characteristics of SSDs in enterprise storage systems: A large-scale field study. In USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies, FAST, 2022.
[32]
Riccardo Pinciroli, Lishan Yang, Jacob Alter, and Evgenia Smirni. The life and death of SSDs and HDDs: Similarities, differences, and prediction models. arXiv preprint, 2020.
[33]
Samsung UK. Memory card warranty statement. https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/memory-card-warranty/. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[34]
Western Digital. Sandisk product warranty periods. https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detailweb/a_id/48391. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[35]
Huawei. Warranty policy. https://consumer.huawei.com/uk/support/warranty-policy/. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[36]
Apple one year limited warranty. https://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/products/ios-warranty-document-us.html, 2023. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[37]
Samsung inc. Warranty information. https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/warranty/. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[38]
Tao Zhang, Aviad Zuck, Donald E Porter, and Dan Tsafrir. Apps can quickly destroy your mobile's flash: why they don't, and how to keep it that way. In Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services, MobiSys, 2019.
[39]
Thomas Alsop. Global NAND bit memory market share 2020, by application. https://www.statista.com/statistics/553338/worldwide-nand-memory-bit-demand-distribution/, Sep. 2022. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[40]
Shujie Han, Patrick PC Lee, Fan Xu, Yi Liu, Cheng He, and Jiongzhou Liu. An in-depth study of correlated failures in production SSD-based data centers. In USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies, FAST, 2021.
[41]
Lotfi Belkhir and Ahmed Elmeligi. Assessing ICT global emissions footprint: Trends to 2040 & recommendations. Journal of cleaner production, 177:448--463, 2018.
[42]
Everphone. What is the average smartphone lifespan? https://everphone.com/en/blog/smartphone-lifespan/. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[43]
Harald Wieser and Nina Troger. Exploring the inner loops of the circular economy: Replacement, repair, and reuse of mobile phones in austria. Journal of Cleaner Production, 172:3042--3055, 2018.
[44]
Ars Technica. Why big tech shreds millions of storage devices it could reuse. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/10/why-big-tech-shreds-millions-of-storage-devices-it-could-reuse/. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[45]
Medium.com. https://medium.com/geekculture/modular-smartphones-far-from-reality-2f8b5dd4263f, 2021. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[46]
Fairphone. https://www.fairphone.com/en/, 2023. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[47]
Ping Chi, Shuangchen Li, Yuanqing Cheng, Yu Lu, Seung H. Kang, and Yuan Xie. Architecture design with STT-RAM: Opportunities and challenges. In Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference, ASP-DAC, 2016.
[48]
Jim Handy. Understanding the intel micron 3DX point memory. Storage Developer Conference 2015. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[49]
TechTarget. Understand the intel optane shutdown. https://www.techtarget.com/searchstorage/opinion/Understand-the-Intel-Optane-shutdown, Aug. 2022. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[50]
Sarah Boyd, Arpad Horvath, and David Dornfeld. Life-cycle assessment of NAND flash memory. IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing, 24(1):117--124, 2011.
[51]
Statista. NAND flash factories by country 2020. https://www.statista.com/statistics/816061/nand-flash-factories-countries/, 2020. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[52]
Interntional Energy Agency. Korea renewable energy 3020 plan. https://www.iea.org/policies/6569-korea-renewable-energy-3020-plan, 2020. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[53]
Carbon Brief. What does china's new paris agreement pledge mean for climate change? https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-does-chinas-new-paris-agreement-pledge-mean-for-climate-change/, Dec. 2021. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[54]
Interntional Energy Agency. Japan 2021 energy policy review. https://www.iea.org/reports/japan-2021, 2021. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[55]
IDC. Data age 2025. https://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/our-story/trends/files/idc-seagate-dataage-whitepaper.pdf, Nov. 2018. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[56]
Petroc Taylor. Amount of data created, consumed, and stored 2010--2020, with forecasts to 2025. https://www.statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created/, Sep. 2020. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[57]
Luca Fasoli. Enabling new markets through flash storage innovation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmnFL3Q7B7o&t=62s, 2020.
[58]
Techradar. SSDs could squeeze hard drives out the data center sooner than you think. https://www.techradar.com/news/ssds-could-squeeze-hard-drives-out-the-data-center-sooner-than-you-think, Feb. 2022. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[59]
Number of smartphone subscriptions worldwide from 2016 to 2021, with forecasts from 2022 to 2027. https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/, 2023. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[60]
Ember. Eu carbon price tracker. https://ember-climate.org/data/data-tools/carbon-price-viewer/. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[61]
CarbonCredits. Left unchecked - the carbon price goes to infinity. https://carboncredits.com/eu-ets-carbon/, Jan. 2022. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[62]
Energy Monitor. Carbon trading the chinese way. https://www.energymonitor.ai/policy/carbon-markets/carbon-trading-the-chinese-way/, Jan. 2022. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[63]
Ltd. Korea Investment & Securities Co. Korean ets market review. International Emissions Trading Association Conference, Sep. 2022. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[64]
UBS Bank. China's carbon trading: a fast-emerging rmb500bn market in the race to net zero. https://www.ubs.com/global/en/investment-bank/in-focus/2022/china-carbon-trading.html, 2022. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[65]
Amazon. Intel 670p series m.2 2280 2tb ssd. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08X4XL71S?th=1, 2021. Accessed: Apr. 2023.
[66]
Cheng Ji, Li-Pin Chang, Liang Shi, Congming Gao, Chao Wu, Yuangang Wang, and Chun Jason Xue. Lightweight data compression for mobile flash storage. ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems, 16(5s), sep 2017.
[67]
Miao-Chiang Yen, Shih-Yi Chang, and Li-Pin Chang. Lightweight, integrated data deduplication for write stress reduction of mobile flash storage. IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems, 37(11):2590--2600, 2018.
[68]
Mohammad Taha Khan, Christopher Tran, Shubham Singh, Dimitri Vasilkov, Chris Kanich, Blase Ur, and Elena Zheleva. Helping users automatically find and manage sensitive, expendable files in cloud storage. In USENIX Security Symposium, 2021.
[69]
Jaeyong Bae, Jaehyung Park, Yuhun Jun, and Euiseong Seo. Dedup-for-speed: Storing duplications in fast programming mode for enhanced read performance. In ACM International Conference on Systems and Storage, SYSTOR, 2022.
[70]
Adrian Sampson, Jacob Nelson, Karin Strauss, and Luis Ceze. Approximate storage in solid-state memories. ACM Transactions on Computer Systems, 32(3), 2014.
[71]
Qiao Li, Liang Shi, Jun Yang, Youtao Zhang, and Chun Jason Xue. Leveraging approximate data for robust flash storage. In ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference, DAC, 2019.
[72]
Yongwoo Lee, Jaehyun Park, Junhee Ryu, and Younghyun Kim. Axftl: Exploiting error tolerance for extending lifetime of NAND flash storage. IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems, 39(11):3239--3249, 2020.
[73]
Ziyang Jiao, Janki Bhimani, and Bryan S. Kim. Wear leveling in SSDs considered harmful. In ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Storage and File Systems, HotStorage, 2022.
[74]
Bryan S. Kim, Eunji Lee, Sungjin Lee, and Sang Lyul Min. CPR for SSDs. In ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems, HotOS, 2019.
[75]
JEDEC. Universal flash storage (ufs) standard. https://www.jedec.org/standards-documents/focus/flash/universal-flash-storage-ufs, 2020. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[76]
Sungjin Lee, Keonsoo Ha, Kangwon Zhang, Jihong Kim, and Junghwan Kim. FlexFS: A flexible flash file system for MLC NAND flash memory. In USENIX annual technical conference, ATC, 2009.
[77]
Janki Bhimani, Jingpei Yang, Zhengyu Yang, Ningfang Mi, NHV Krishna Giri, Rajinikanth Pandurangan, Changho Choi, and Vijay Balakrishnan. Enhancing SSDs with multi-stream: What? why? how? In IEEE International Performance Computing and Communications Conference, IPCCC, 2017.
[78]
Theano Stavrinos, Daniel S Berger, Ethan Katz-Bassett, and Wyatt Lloyd. Don't be a blockhead: zoned namespaces make work on conventional SSDs obsolete. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems, HotOS, 2021.
[79]
Kopo Marvin Ramokapane, Jose Such, and Awais Rashid. What users want from cloud deletion and the information they need: A participatory action study. ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security, 26(1), nov 2022.
[80]
Francesco Vitale, William Odom, and Joanna McGrenere. Keeping and discarding personal data: Exploring a design space. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference, DIS, 2019.
[81]
Yan Li. 3D NAND memory and its application in solid-state drives: Architecture, reliability, flash management techniques, and current trends. IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine, 12(4):56--65, 2020.
[82]
Micron 5210 ION enterprise SATA qlc SSD. https://www.micron.com/-/media/client/global/documents/products/product-flyer/5210_ion_ssd_product_brief.pdf?la=en, 2020. Accessed: Jan 2023.
[83]
Aviad Zuck, Sivan Toledo, Dmitry Sotnikov, and Danny Harnik. Compression and SSDs: Where and how? In Workshop on Interactions of NVM/Flash with Operating Systems and Workloads, INFLOW, 2014.
[84]
Xuebin Zhang, Jiangpeng Li, Hao Wang, Kai Zhao, and Tong Zhang. Reducing solid-state storage device write stress through opportunistic in-place delta compression. In USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies, FAST, 2016.
[85]
Aayush Gupta, Raghav Pisolkar, Bhuvan Urgaonkar, and ANAND Sivasubramaniam. Leveraging value locality in optimizing NAND flash-based SSDs. In USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies, FAST, 2011.
[86]
Thomas E. Anderson, Adam Belay, Mosharaf Chowdhury, Asaf Cidon, and Irene Zhang. Treehouse: A case for carbon-aware datacenter software. CoRR, abs/2201.02120, 2022.
[87]
Stavros Harizopoulos and Spiros Papadimitriou. A case for micro-cellstores: Energy-efficient data management on recycled smartphones. In Proceedings of the Seventh International Workshop on Data Management on New Hardware, DaMoN, 2011.
[88]
Mohammad Shahrad and David Wentzlaff. Towards deploying decommissioned mobile devices as cheap Energy-Efficient compute nodes. In 9th USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Cloud Computing, HotCloud, 2017.
[89]
Jennifer Switzer, Gabriel Marcano, Ryan Kastner, and Pat Pannuto. Junkyard computing: Repurposing discarded smartphones to minimize carbon. In Proceedings of the 28th ACM International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems, Volume 2, ASPLOS, 2023.

Cited By

View all
  • (2025)The Role of Lightweight AI Models in Supporting a Sustainable Transition to Renewable Energy: A Systematic ReviewEnergies10.3390/en1805119218:5(1192)Online publication date: 28-Feb-2025
  • (2025)The Sustainability Gap for Computing: Quo Vadis?Communications of the ACM10.1145/3699595Online publication date: 14-Feb-2025
  • (2023)Toward Sustainable HPC: Carbon Footprint Estimation and Environmental Implications of HPC SystemsProceedings of the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis10.1145/3581784.3607035(1-15)Online publication date: 12-Nov-2023

Index Terms

  1. Degrading Data to Save the Planet

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Conferences
    HOTOS '23: Proceedings of the 19th Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems
    June 2023
    247 pages
    ISBN:9798400701955
    DOI:10.1145/3593856
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

    Sponsors

    Publisher

    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 22 June 2023

    Permissions

    Request permissions for this article.

    Check for updates

    Qualifiers

    • Research-article

    Funding Sources

    Conference

    HOTOS '23
    Sponsor:

    Upcoming Conference

    HOTOS '25
    Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems
    May 14 - 16, 2025
    Banff , AB , Canada

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)161
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)17
    Reflects downloads up to 05 Mar 2025

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2025)The Role of Lightweight AI Models in Supporting a Sustainable Transition to Renewable Energy: A Systematic ReviewEnergies10.3390/en1805119218:5(1192)Online publication date: 28-Feb-2025
    • (2025)The Sustainability Gap for Computing: Quo Vadis?Communications of the ACM10.1145/3699595Online publication date: 14-Feb-2025
    • (2023)Toward Sustainable HPC: Carbon Footprint Estimation and Environmental Implications of HPC SystemsProceedings of the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis10.1145/3581784.3607035(1-15)Online publication date: 12-Nov-2023

    View Options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Login options

    Figures

    Tables

    Media

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media