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With electric bills in large data centers topping $1 million per month, power consumption is a major concern. Using Fluke 322 and Fluke 335 clamp meters, we measured each switch's power draw, both when idle and again when its control and data planes were fully loaded.
The results show a roughly threefold difference between the most miserly and power-hungry device but most switches used similar amounts of power, drawing anywhere between 128 and 154 watts when fully loaded. Alcatel-Lucent's OmniSwitch 6850 wins bragging rights for the most efficient device when idle, using just 79 watts. Extreme's Summit X450 was the most efficient when fully loaded, requiring 128 watts.
Foundry's X448 was an exception. It uses 255 watts when idle and 316 watts fully loaded, more than double that of other switches. At 1.5 rack units, it's also slightly larger than all other switches, which take up 1 rack unit apiece.
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Comments (4)
Nortel Energy Efficient SwitchesBy Anonymous on May 3, 2008, 11:25 pmI saw the Nortel 4548GT beating the Cisco 3750 at Interop in May08... It was just 56 watts idele...I guess you didn't ask them to join?>
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Why no Nortel in Switch test?By Christine Burns, NWW Testing Editor on May 5, 2008, 9:34 amWe did invite Nortel, as well as all other vendors who play in this market, to participate in the test but the company declined our invitation.
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Test Setup QuestionBy Anonymous on June 24, 2008, 9:07 pmDefine "Idle". Was the box just sitting there waiting for LAN traffic or just booted up?
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Add-your-own test result databaseBy brycenesbitt on September 17, 2009, 2:52 pmThe test grid at http://www.obviously.com/tech_tips/Switch_Power_Consumption accepts user contributions. So add your Nortel if you like. There "idle" means powered...
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