Power consumption reduction - Eco-mode

Disk drives have Eco-mode support using MAID technology[1]. This stops disk rotation at set times based on customer's usage patterns.
Eco-mode reduces power consumption, as disks are powered down during periods of inactivity.
This time controlled mode, based on scheduled use of specific disks, can be setup for individual RAID groups and backup operations.

Rotation stops if scheduled disks are not accessed for specific periods, and restarts when a data access order is received. Full rotation is restored in around one minute.

Furthermore, ETERNUS DX (S3 or later) supports a function that stops the disk rotation in the time slot that the disk do not access and then cuts the electricity for the disk rotation to reduce power consumption. And the schedule of Eco-mode function can be set for each RAID group or for each physical disk pool of Thin provisioning function according to the backup operation.

As shown in the following configuration ETERNUS DX500 S4 with Eco-mode reduces 20% in power consumption and 3,000kg in CO2 emissions a year[2].

  • [1]
    MAID technology is an acronym for "Massive Array of Idle Disks". This technology extends the life of disk drives as well as reducing power consumption by stopping spindle rotation on less frequently accessed disk drives.
  • [2]
    Compare the configuration always operating 130 300GB disks and 80 1TB disks with the same configuration halting only 1TB disks for 20 hours. In-house testing.

Product Requirements

Supported StoragesETERNUS DX60 S5/S4/S3
ETERNUS DX100 S5/S4/S3, DX200 S5/S4/S3
ETERNUS DX500 S5/S4/S3, DX600 S5/S4/S3
ETERNUS DX900 S5
ETERNUS DX8700 S3/S2, DX8900 S4/S3
ETERNUS DX60 S2, DX80 S2, DX90 S2
ETERNUS DX400 S2 series
Supported ServersMission Critical IA/UNIX/Industry Standard Server
Management Software
(power consumption and temperature)
ETERNUS SF Storage Cruiser
  • *Note:
    Products/features/support content introduced on this page may be modified without notice.

Further Information

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