OzSort: Sorting 100GB for less than 87kJoules

OzSort is a fast and stable external sorting software specifically optimized for the requirements of the 2009 PennySort (Indy) benchmark. OzSort can sort over 246GB of data for under a penny, using a standard desktop PC. The data sorted consisted of 100 byte records with (random) keys of length 10 bytes starting from the first byte of each record. In this paper, we apply our OzSort software and its associated hardware components to address the important issue of energy efficiency. By using our software and hardware components, we demonstrate that the power consumption of OzSort on a general-purpose desktop PC can rival that of CoolSort. OzSort could sort 100GB of data in about 827s using less than 87kJoules — 11,597 records sorted/joule. These results exceed that of CoolSort (Daytona class) in 2007, which used mobile processor technology and a RAID of laptop hard drives.