Facebook close to opening its second huge data center
Facebook is making major strides to build its second huge data center and has already completed the outer shell that creates a structure with approximately 300,000 square feet of space for server racks.
Data Center Knowledge reported the facility is in Rutherford County, North Carolina, and is likely to open in the first quarter 2012. This represents a fairly accelerated production cycle, as the data center was first announced in November 2010.
The report said Facebook plans to construct the facility for energy efficiency and will likely attempt to use a chiller-less system similar to the one in its Pineville, Oregon, data center. However, the report emphasized that free cooling will not be as easy to come by in North Carolina as it was in Oregon. Still, Data Center Knowledge expects the facility to find some use for exhaust heat, even if it cannot use free cooling as well.
Energy efficiency is a global trend in the data center industry. A recent New York Times report said water is becoming a key component in efficient data center cooling strategies.
