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Circularity in Storage�CDI Updates for 2025��

JM Hands, Aug 2025

Hello, and thank you for your strong attention.

The objective of this brief is to provide the basis for priority and immediate action in achieving Net Zero through Circularity, and to compel all stakeholders to be the economic, operational, and embodied carbon partners collaborating to reduce e-waste by enabling the secure reuse of data storage hardware.

Circularity, the ability to refurbish, reuse, recover, and recycle requires the data storage industry and all stakeholders embrace the technological innovation of cryptographic data sanitization so that carbon economics and operational simplicity can be realized and storage devices do not get shredded.

The reality is that Hundreds of Millions of HDDs or SSDs can not continue going to landfills each year.

IT hardware and specifically data storage can not deplete the earth’s finite resources.

We can not continue to make, take and destroy.

The technology of data storage created with atomic scale and electromagnetic precision also has the innovation to make reuse possible……

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Agenda

AI data centers!
Circularity strategies
Circularity in OCP
Media sanitization guidelines and reference policy
Drive health grading and automation
Seagate research

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Who we are

STEWARD MEMBERS

CDI is a 501(c)(6) Non-profit.

A partnership of global leaders in digital storage, data centers, sustainability, and blockchain collaborating to reduce �e-waste by enabling, driving, and promoting the secure reuse of storage hardware.

So what is the Circular Drive Initiative or CDI.

The CDI is an industry association, a partnership of companies in the data storage industry, think OEMs, integrators, data center companies, hyperscalers and ITADs that have come together committed reduce GHG emissions and e-waste created from data storage.

And to achieve this vision of carbon neutrality and e-waste reduction, this association, this partnership are working in the collective to develop and promote standards in data sanitization. This is the key unlock to circularity and the ability to extend the life of IT data storage and address end of life.

The CDI is a safe space for developing and promoting standards,

The objective of the standard is to be neutral for the industry regardless of company.

The operationalizing of the standard, how the spec is implemented by companies as they extend the life of the product through refurbish, reuse, recover or how they recycle at end of life, those economics are rather a private partnership between companies.

What is CDI not?

Let’s face it. A hard drive and a solid-state drive, like other IT assets have value!

The operationalizing of the standard, how the spec is implemented by companies as they extend the life of the product through refurbish, reuse, recover or how they recycle at end of life, those economics are rather a private partnership between companies.

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Finding AI Energy in an Already Challenged Grid

>50% of data center critical IT power²�will be AI-driven by 2028

Projected Non-AI vs AI Data Center Energy Use (MW)¹

¹ Source – SemiAnalysis, Mar 2024

² Source – SemiAnalysis defines critical IT power as the power capacity required to support the essential IT infrastructure within datacenters, particularly focusing on the demand driven by AI accelerators

³ Source – Bond Trends – Artificial Intelligence

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Storage is a significant DC power component

Microsoft Azure + Carnegie Mellon Study¹

Storage-related emissions –�including storage racks and �local storage devices – make up �33% of operational emissions

¹ Source - Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University

² Source – Data Center Dynamics

We would probably build out bigger clusters than we currently can if we could get the energy to do it.” �Mark Zuckerberg, Meta²

‟

Massive amounts of data in the pipeline...translating to big energy requirements
Case studies reinforce concept that legacy storage is power inefficient

Meta + Stanford looked at Meta’s AI RE
HDDs consume up to 35% available power during prep and training
“...directly constrains training capacity due to fixed...power budgets”
Microsoft Azure + Carnegie Melon WP
Not even AI – Azure general purpose cloud
33% of operational power consumption
Note - operational energy consumption =energy used to operate, power, cool and light storage infrastructure; Here’s what the Msft paper says: “Azure suggests that storage-related emissions — including storage racks and local storage devices — makeup 33% of operational and 61% of embodied emissions. Storage racks alone account for 24% of operational and 45% of embodied emissions”

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Power Efficiency vs Embodied Carbon

Storage Media	Embodied Carbon by Product (Kg CO₂)	Embodied Carbon per TB (CO₂/TB)	Embodied Carbon per TB per Year (CO₂/TB/year)
SSD²	4,915	160	32
Hard Drive³	29.7	<1	<0.2
LTO Tape⁴	48	2.66	<0.6

Source: https://www.seagate.com/resources/decarbonizing-data-report/

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Incentivizing Circular Economy - Carbon Accounting

Current GHG accounting disincentivizes circular practices - The cutoff method gives minimal emissions benefit to companies returning drives for reuse
Recertified drives deliver 25% lower emissions - Using recertified drives produces significantly less environmental impact than buying new ones
Three allocation methods create different incentives - Each method (cutoff, economic, CFF) incentivizes different behaviors in the circular economy
Seagate recommends Circular Footprint Formula - CFF provides the most balanced allocation between first and second users
Industry standardization is critical - Unified allocation approaches are needed to accelerate circular economy adoption across the industry

Source: Seagate

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CDI Data Sanitization Best Practices

Identify & Classify data sensitivity (Low/Moderate/High)
Assess Risk using Likelihood × Magnitude framework
Review Regulatory Requirements (GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA, etc.)
Select Method based on risk assessment
Execute Sanitization per IEEE 2883 standards
Verify results (sampling for Clear, full verification for Purge)
Document & Certify with ISO 27040-compliant Certificate of Sanitization
Audit & Improve quarterly reviews and process updates

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CDI Media Sanitization Policy

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Backup

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Storage Sustainability Research from Claude

Dramatic Energy Reduction Achievable Today: Combined sustainability practices including tiering, deduplication, and compression can reduce storage energy consumption by 80-90%, while emerging liquid cooling technologies achieve up to 90% reduction in cooling energy - with organizations already realizing 15-35% energy cost reductions.
US Leadership Drives Global Transformation: Federal investment exceeds $1 billion in storage sustainability research, with breakthrough technologies like DNA storage (215 petabytes per gram) and Microsoft's Project Silica glass storage promising zero power consumption for long-term data storage by 2030.
Circular Economy Unlocks Hidden Value: The storage industry wastes $57 billion annually in recoverable materials, but new initiatives show 90% rare earth element recovery from HDDs is achievable, while predictive maintenance using AI achieves 98% precision in failure prediction, extending device lifespans significantly.
Major Vendors Set Aggressive Targets: Western Digital commits to net-zero emissions by 2032 (42% reduction already achieved), Seagate targets 100% renewable energy by 2030, and Samsung leads with 37 semiconductor products receiving third-party carbon footprint verification - though significant gaps remain in industry-wide transparency.
Waste Heat Recovery Presents Massive Opportunity: Data centers can supply heating to thousands of homes (a 7.5MW facility could heat 485,000 m²), with real implementations achieving 28% efficiency gains - yet this remains largely untapped in the US despite proven economic viability with 5-10 year payback periods.

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Security, Cryptography, Sanitization, Verification

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IEEE 2883 Purge

Media Sanitization

ISO/IEC 27040

Certificate of Sanitization

IEEE 2883 Verification

Hardware roots of trust

Firmware audits

Forensic Analysis

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Icons

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