The bandwagon that is energy efficiency has gained 28 more riders, with Brocade, Novell and Copan among those signing up to the Green Grid (http://www.thegreengrid.org/), a non-profit consortium set up to address the problems of energy consumption in the data centre.

Copan claims that because its massive array of idle disk (MAID) technology powers down unused disks, it can run 91TB of storage per kilowatt of power, versus 4TB per KW for Fibre Channel disk and 17TB per KW for SATA disk. Copan also claims to be the first storage company to join, even though you might have read somewhere that GG founders IBM, Sun and HP may also have some sort of minor interest in storage.

Novell meanwhile reckons its ZENworks management tools and virtualised SUSE Linux on Xen have a big role to play in saving server power, and Brocade says it needs to be in there because networked storage has become a major power consumer in the data centre.

The other new GG riders signing up this week are 1E, 365 Main, Active Power, Affiniti, Aperture, Azul Systems, BT, Chatsworth Products, Cherokee International, ColdWatt , Digital Realty Trust, Eaton, Force10 Networks, Juniper Networks, Netezza, Pillar Data, Panduit, Rackspace Managed Hosting, SGI, SatCon Stationary Power Systems, Texas Instruments, The 451 Group and Vossel Solution. No, we hadn't heard of half of those companies either.[And what an analyst firm - the 451 Group - doing in there? - Ed]

Green Grid is holding its first technical summit in Denver next week, and says it expects the event to produce detailed technical objectives and programme plans for data centre design, operation and efficiency.

We're sure the group will accomplish something one day. ®

Related stories

Big Blue gets into greenwash (2 November 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/11/02/ibm_green_certificates/
Green Grid snuggles with US lobbying group (24 October 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/10/24/green_grid_lobbying_group_bff/
SNIA offers green advice (10 August 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/08/10/snia_green_group/
Efficient data centers make companies less green (7 August 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/08/07/linuxworld07_christian_belady/
The greening of Dell notebooks (29 June 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/06/29/dell_green_notebooks/
SGI's ICE, ICE bladey (27 June 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/06/27/sgi_ice_blade/
America wastes gazillions with always-on PCs (26 June 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/06/26/1e_report_alwayson_pcs/
Sun appears to own part of Java server start-up Azul (20 June 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/06/20/sun_azul_stock/
Pillar packs more storage in Axiom boxes (20 June 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/06/20/pillar_upgrades_axiom_storage/
Start-up forced to admit that Sun invented Java (19 June 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/06/19/sun_azul_settle/
Intel and Google go Bono over power supplies (12 June 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/06/12/google_intel_climate_savers/
Low-energy server hosting goes underground (7 June 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/06/07/smartbunker_msp/
Power firm plans low-energy credits (1 June 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/01/sse_energy_credits/
Brocade profits McDisappear (1 June 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/01/brocade_earnings_q2_2007/
IBM flaunts green credentials (25 May 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/05/25/ibm_green/
IBM polishes grid for healthcare providers (17 May 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/05/17/ibm_updates_gmas_grid_system/
Data centre firm in €50m expansion (10 May 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/05/10/interxion_expansion/
Stock probe guts Juniper's profits (24 April 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/24/juniper_q1_2007/
Small tech firms say green regs WEEEly unfair (11 April 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/04/11/weee_small_biz/
How green is my vendor? (26 March 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/03/26/green_vendors/
Intel and Microsoft plug into the Green Grid (23 February 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/02/23/greengrid_intel_microsoft/
AMD wants to be seen as green (21 February 2007)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/02/21/amd_wants_to_be_seen_as_green/
Inefficient Ethernet wastes over $1bn a year (5 February 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/02/05/ethernet_energy/
Looking Forward: Power, Cooling, and the Data Centre (25 January 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/01/25/looking_forward_power_cooling_data_centre/
Blade innovations highlight energy efficiency opportunities (11 January 2007)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/01/11/blade_energy_efficiency/
Dell calls on customers to contribute to carbon-neutral computing (10 January 2007)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/01/10/dell_plant_a_tree_scheme/