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Apple breaks ground for new Oregon data center
After spending the last few months putting together the paperwork and plans for its upcoming Oregon-based data center, Apple has finally broken ground on the project. The company will be transforming 160 acres of area near Prineville, Ore., into two big state-of-the-art data centers, and construction has started just recently. The initial cost of development was only $68 million, though as construction and upkeep go on, the expected cost of the structure is expected to run up to nearly a billion dollars. Not that Apple can't afford it -- the data center will help run associated services like iCloud, iTunes and all of the other various moneymakers the company from Cupertino has going. And of course, Apple picked up plenty of tax bonuses for building in Oregon: The local economy is booming, especially since Facebook has built facilities very close by. Presumably, the center should finally be up and running at some point next year.
Facebook to backup its servers with low-power storage devices at 'Sub-Zero' data center
Data backups come in all shapes and sizes. For some, they take the form of external hard drives or a slice of the amorphous cloud. As for Facebook, its upcoming solution is low-power deep-storage hardware contained within a 62,000 square-foot building in Prineville, Oregon near its existing Beaver State data center. Unofficially referred to as "Sub-Zero," the facility will store a copy of the social network's data in case its primary servers need to be restored in an emergency. Rather than continuously power HDDs that are only occasionally used, the new setup can conserve energy by lighting-up drives just when they're needed. One of the company's existing server racks eats up around 4.5 kilowatts, while those at Sub-Zero are each expected to consume approximately 1.5 kilowatts once they're up and running. Tom Furlong, Facebook's vice president of site operations, told Wired that there are hopes to create a similar structure alongside the firm's North Carolina data center. Since the Prineville project is still being planned, Zuckerberg & Co. have roughly six to nine months to suss out all the details before your photos are backed up at the new digs.
Apple makes a tax deal for Prineville, Oregon data center land
We've heard before that Apple plans to build a data center on land it previously purchased in Oregon, but now the Associated Press reports on part of the cost. The company has reportedly agreed to pay US$150,000 per year to local governments, and has signed off on at least 35 jobs. Those jobs will be paid at a rate that's at least 150% of the average wage in the Oregon county. Finally, according to the AP, Apple will have to invest at least $250 million into the data center building itself. In return for all of that, Apple will be exempt on property tax payments for the next 15 years. Whether that will be worth it or not depends on exactly how much they build there, but odds are Apple's accountants aren't that worried. The company already paid $5.6 million for the land earlier this year, and it's setting up plans to both build up the infrastructure of the local power company to keep the data center running, as well as a green energy site there on the spot. Oregon is apparently a popular place for data centers like this. Google, Amazon, and Facebook all have similar sites in the surrounding area. [via MacRumors]
Facebook's Open Compute Project shares plans for energy-efficient data center
We know, you've seen an awful lot of Zuckerberg and crew here lately, and the Facebook news just keeps rolling in. This time the social networking giant is doing some sharing of a different sort by offering public access to the specifications and best practices behind its new, more efficient data center in Prineville, Oregon. According to the company, the center, built in collaboration with AMD, Dell, HP, and Intel, has boosted energy efficiency by 38 percent while lowering cost by 24 percent. The information now available through the Open Compute Project includes technical specs and mechanical CAD files for everything from servers to building design. Basically, if you want to erect your own multi-million dollar Facebook-style data center, you've got the go ahead. Full PR after the break.
