If it costs you 5000 kg of CO2 to manufacture the SSD, you will never recoup in operational terms no matter how it's sliced.
A modern NGCC power plant generates 400-500kg of CO2 per megawatt-hour of energy produced. It would take well over 100 years of operation to begin approaching this at a consumption level of ~10w.
I thought so too at first, but after a little bit of research, those really do appear to be the correct numbers. For instance, a detailed report [1] into one of Seagate's 1.92TB SSDs suggests that it consumed >200kg CO2 per TB. Eye-opening, really.
One of the estimates my Solar system gives me is the amount of CO2 saved from using the system. I save about 6 Tonnes a year for having a 5.5KWp system. That is about 2.2 Tonnes of coal not burnt but its also only about 3 trees worth!
Its quite staggering the amount of CO2 our energy use is actually producing. KGs of CO2 for an items manufacture is pretty normal.
If it costs you 5000 kg of CO2 to manufacture the SSD, you will never recoup in operational terms no matter how it's sliced.
A modern NGCC power plant generates 400-500kg of CO2 per megawatt-hour of energy produced. It would take well over 100 years of operation to begin approaching this at a consumption level of ~10w.