Apple owns another 70 acres at North Carolina data center site

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  • Reply 21 of 39
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Johnny Mozzarella View Post


    While they add 2 billion in cash to their bank account per month.





    Energy costs are a big deal no matter how much money you have. From an environmental perspective, wasting energy is not a good corporate image strategy either. That is one reason both Google and MS are building data centers in the Pacific Northwest closer to hydroelectric sources and in cooler climates.
  • Reply 22 of 39
    What a waste of valuable real estate. They should have made their first building 4 floors and 1/2 the footprint. They could at least cover the roof with solar panels to at least be a **little** environmentally conscious/offset their carbon.
  • Reply 23 of 39
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    Energy costs are a big deal no matter how much money you have. From an environmental perspective, wasting energy is not a good corporate image strategy either. That is one reason both Google and MS are building data centers in the Pacific Northwest closer to hydroelectric sources and in cooler climates.



    If they were really serious about wanting to help the environment, they would have built it at the North Pole or Antarctica.

    Not to mention the impact it would have on the local economy.
  • Reply 24 of 39
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SuperMacGuy View Post


    What a waste of valuable real estate. They should have made their first building 4 floors and 1/2 the footprint. They could at least cover the roof with solar panels to at least be a **little** environmentally conscious/offset their carbon.



    Or they should have just stacked all the servers in a giant tower and left the refrigerator door open.
  • Reply 25 of 39
    desarcdesarc Posts: 642member
    making the roof all white is a cheap way to reduce cooling costs. i have to assume they're using geothermal cooling as well - but i haven't seen any construction photos that can verify this.



    If it were strictly a cost issue, North Carolina charges commercial customers [on average] 8.41 cents/KwH. Montana would be the cheapest @4.91 cents/KwH
  • Reply 26 of 39
    desarcdesarc Posts: 642member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SuperMacGuy View Post


    What a waste of valuable real estate. They should have made their first building 4 floors and 1/2 the footprint. They could at least cover the roof with solar panels to at least be a **little** environmentally conscious/offset their carbon.



    building a single floor slab-on grade prefab metal building for a server farm is far cheaper than building a multi-story structure required to handle the dead load weight of those servers



    ...and solar panels on the roof of a server farm would only meet a TINY fraction of their power demands - the equivalent of putting a sail on an aircraft carrier.
  • Reply 27 of 39
    lilgto64lilgto64 Posts: 1,147member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SuperMacGuy View Post


    What a waste of valuable real estate. They should have made their first building 4 floors and 1/2 the footprint. They could at least cover the roof with solar panels to at least be a **little** environmentally conscious/offset their carbon.



    Do you have any idea what the cost is to reinforce a floor to hold the weight of a row of servers and or storage? A lot. And all the power and cable runs etc. Any savings in ground area could easily be spent on the required infrastructure to get gear to multiple floors.



    And there may be zoning laws limiting the height of biildings.
  • Reply 28 of 39
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by desarc View Post


    If it were strictly a cost issue, North Carolina charges commercial customers [on average] 8.41 cents/KwH. Montana would be the cheapest @4.91 cents/KwH



    Montana is too remote and not convenient to the existing data grid or peering points.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by desarc View Post


    building a single floor slab-on grade prefab metal building for a server farm is far cheaper than building a multi-story structure required to handle the dead load weight of those servers



    ALL data centers have raised floors. Slabs vs. any other structural design is irrelevant to the weight of the servers. Most, but not all data centers are single level for many reasons. Mostly it costs less to build out rather than up, you know, with cranes and elevators, etc. So if you have the land it makes sense. And they will not use metal prefab. Tilt up concrete all the way.
  • Reply 29 of 39
    lilgto64lilgto64 Posts: 1,147member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    Montana is too remote and not convenient to the existing data grid or peering points.







    ALL data centers have raised floors. Slabs vs. any other structural design is irrelevant to the weight of the servers. Most, but not all data centers are single level for many reasons. Mostly it costs less to build out rather than up, you know, with cranes and elevators, etc. So if you have the land it makes sense. And they will not use metal prefab. Tilt up concrete all the way.



    1 not all data centers have raises floora

    2 regardless the weight has to go somewhere

    3 a customer of mine recently paid about $80000 to add structural steel between the third and fourth floors of an office building in order to put a data center on the fourth floor. And that was for a single row of about 6 racks. With a raised floor.



    Other items such as elevators not only for people but also for moving thousands of pounds of gear at a time are also factors.



    The point is that any project of that scale has about a thousand considerations which must all be weighed and balanced against each other. And unless you are a general contractor or designer of such projects then you are only qualified to speculate. I am not picking on anyone in particular here just saying that the majority of us have newer had to even imagine all the data points necessary to plan an implement such a project.
  • Reply 30 of 39
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    I am amazed no one has started an Area 51 rumor yet. This is where SJ will next meet the aliens who are handing down the next phase in Apple's technology.
  • Reply 31 of 39
    lilgto64lilgto64 Posts: 1,147member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post


    I am amazed no one has started an Area 51 rumor yet. This is where SJ will next meet the aliens who are handing down the next phase in Apple's technology.



    Naw that would be here

    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matav...edirected=true
  • Reply 32 of 39
    sandorsandor Posts: 655member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by quinney View Post


    An acre is 43560 square feet, so a 500,000 square ft building is about 11.5 acres. Plenty of room.



    and then if you think they could build a 2 or 3 or more story building, you quickly realize that there is plenty of room.



    for instance, the corporate headquarters of Comcast is a 1.25 MILLION square foot building situated on a piece of land < 5 acres in size.
  • Reply 33 of 39
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lilgto64 View Post


    1 not all data centers have raises floors

    2 regardless the weight has to go somewhere



    Any new facility will have raised floors. Apple's data center is not a retrofit so clearly they will build it to suit their specifications.



    Quote:

    3 a customer of mine recently paid about $80000 to add structural steel between the third and fourth floors of an office building in order to put a data center on the fourth floor. And that was for a single row of about 6 racks. With a raised floor.



    See, this is a mistake that companies often make. They invest all this money and manpower for 6 lousy cabinets. Rolling your own datacenter is a terrible ROI. It costs peanuts to have real pro hosting, 24/7 monitoring, backup, enterprise level firewall, physical security and gigabit bandwidth with multiple top tier peering, I don't know why anyone would waste money reinventing the wheel especially for such a small deployment.



    Quote:

    And unless you are a general contractor or designer of such projects then you are only qualified to speculate. I am not picking on anyone in particular here just saying that the majority of us have newer had to even imagine all the data points necessary to plan an implement such a project.



    Agreed, but I actually do have considerable experience in this particular area.
  • Reply 34 of 39
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Doorman. View Post


    Yeah, and then one day the Sun will be more active than usual and you won't be able to access your data at all. This will start the new revolution.



    One day your hard drive will fail,or your computer gets stolen, or you are on vacation with only you ipad and you will think : Oh thast why the cloud is a good idea."
  • Reply 35 of 39
    aaarrrggghaaarrrgggh Posts: 1,609member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by desarc View Post


    building a single floor slab-on grade prefab metal building for a server farm is far cheaper than building a multi-story structure required to handle the dead load weight of those servers



    ...and solar panels on the roof of a server farm would only meet a TINY fraction of their power demands - the equivalent of putting a sail on an aircraft carrier.



    It all depends on the load density and the distribution approach. We had a facility with more pounds of copper than steel as a slab on grade, so we lifted the data center above the plant and ended up with a net savings of something around 3%.



    ...and they do have sails for cargo ships-- MV Beluga Skysails is about 1/8 the displacement of an aircraft carrier, but it does reduce the fuel consumption by 20%.
  • Reply 36 of 39
    aaarrrggghaaarrrgggh Posts: 1,609member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    Any new facility will have raised floors. Apple's data center is not a retrofit so clearly they will build it to suit their specifications.



    You don't like APC either, eh?



    We are actually doing more sites as slab on grade with high ceiling for air stratification. Easy to get larger coil and filter area in a large vertical unit, to improve efficiency.
  • Reply 37 of 39
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aaarrrgggh View Post


    You don't like APC either, eh?



    We are actually doing more sites as slab on grade with high ceiling for air stratification. Easy to get larger coil and filter area in a large vertical unit, to improve efficiency.



    Ha Ha no. We have redundant Powerware & dual Cat diesel sets plus unlimited fuel supply on retainer. The reason just about all sites in California use tilt up concrete is for intrusion security and seismic stability. Class A structures are required if you are planning to do any government data work.
  • Reply 38 of 39
    Or they could simply be buying land to keep it out of the hands of speculators, to manage the local environment, or for a redundant facility in case California's big earthquake hits. If Apple turns the new land into a bird sanctuary and/or park, they could average out very green if their data center chomps lots of electrons or otherwise pollutes. Or it could be for hotels for the visitors to Apple Heaven or a solar power source for the data center.
  • Reply 39 of 39
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Johnny Mozzarella View Post


    Steve's original plan was for the data center to resemble a giant 500,000 sq. ft. Mac mini.

    The building across the street will resemble a giant 500,000 sq. ft. Time Capsule.



    Also, the design doesn't allow for standard sized doors, so getting in and out requires an expensive "Door to Apple Data Center Access" adapter.



    Or you can opt to pay a yearly fee to have an Apple employee bring you what you need. But don't try to ask for meat. Steve won't let you have it.
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