This might not be answerable in theory, but any thoughts are appreciated:
I have a UNIX server that has 2GB of RAM, and presumably it is slightly overloaded and swapping to disk heavily. It is a test server, and the only user is me, so being busy is not a problem.
I have some extra RAM available (lets say 6GB) of RAM. Assuming the RAM upgrade substantially removes the need to page to disk, the question I have is:
Will the upgrade save energy (from a net reduction of disk usage vs. the energy used by the additional RAM)?
UPDATE: To clarify, this is not a "save $$$" question, this was a curiosity. Joel had once made a comment in a podcast about how there is always someone asking if they can run their system with lots of RAM and no swap, because they have a simplistic view of how memory is managed. This was me, thinking about the ways adding RAM would change my system's behavior.