--[Also, laptops are often used on battery charge rather than with an AC connection, which is A Good Thing.]--

Errr, I hope you don't think that this is because the energy when running on a battery comes out of thin air or something! If the power settings are the same in AC and battery mode, the power usage will be the same.

However, if the laptop (as with mine here) runs on fairly heavily battery-optimised settings to maximise lifetime when away from AC, what you say has some truth to it.

Generally, I would have thought laptops would be "greener" as they're designed for lower power usage and lower material (weight) usage too. Though anyone who knows to the contrary please step in...

Blade systems are currently really only of use when you are short of space. Otherwise what you are doing is buying into an expensive infrastructure and a single source supplier.


Anyone who ever run Citrix Farms on blades now want to go back from Blade Hell.
ESX server will do better job any time.
Just stand behind blade rack - sauna.

In theory, there is merit to the above; in practice, it's not achievable in the majority of datacentres. At issue is increased heat generated from the high rack density associated with blades. The majority of datacentres do not have the cooling capacity to handle a fully stacked rack of blades. I wonder what the expert has to say about that.

If the data centres switched to a DC power network at 170v or 320v they would save quite a bit of power (reactive mainly). The servers wouldn't even need modifying to work at this voltage.