The environmental footprint of data storage or what can lie behind a gigabyte

What is the cost of a gigabyte? - Researchers working on the environmental impacts of information technologies (IT) often had to answer this question at least once. The first step in answering this question is generally to ask: what type of gigabyte (GB) are we talking about? Is it the cost of computing, transferring through networks or storing one gigabyte? This ambiguity, although seemingly trivial, nevertheless leads several scientific publications, even those from reputable academic journals, to produce misguided works [1]. In this paper, we will focus solely on the footprint associated with storing one gigabyte of data. We will explain why this issue is relevant in the current state of research on the environmental footprint of IT and why this simple question calls for complex answers. Finally, we will present our current research position on the footprint of storage as a service and its challenges.