SNIA Published Emerald Power Efficiency Measurement Specification V1.0

SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association) Emerald Power Measurement Specification V.1.0 identifies metrics by which energy consumption and efficiency of storage networking products can be measured for the purposes of new product development, end-user customer evaluation, and regulatory standards development.This SNIA architecture specification describes a standardized method to assess the power efficiency of enterprise storage devices (HDD and SSD) used in data center applications for both active and idle states of operation. A taxonomy is defined that classifies enterprise storage devices in terms of operational profiles and supported features.

SNIA technical position: Emerald Power Efficiency Measurement Specification for Data Center Storage Devices V1.0 (PDF)

“This document describes a standardized method to assess the power efficiency of storage devices used in data center applications in both active and idle states of operation. A taxonomy is defined that classifies storage devices in terms of operational profiles and supported features. Test definition and execution rules for measuring the power efficiency of each taxonomy category are defined; these include test sequence, test configuration, instrumentation, benchmark driver, IO profiles, measurement interval, and metric stability assessment. Resulting power efficiency metrics are defined as ratios of idle capacity or active operations during a selected stable measurement interval to the average measured power.”