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Ongoing investigations over at All Things Digital have revealed that Apple's new data center that is set to open "any day now" in Maiden, North Carolina may be the site of even grander plans than the potential doubling in size discovered late last week. According to that earlier research, Apple's initial proposal to representatives of Catawba County where the project is located included a schematic showing two adjacent data centers that would appear to total on the order of one million square feet, with only one of those buildings having been constructed so far.


100247-apple_data_center_70_acres.jpg


Apple's 70-acre parcel across Startown Road from existing data center
New research from All Things Digital indicates, however, that Apple's plans may even extend beyond that planned one million square-foot facility on 183 acres, as the company also owns 70 acres across the street from that site.
The scuttlebutt around Maiden is that the company intends to use it for office space. But that seems unlikely.

A more plausible explanation is that this parcel, too, will be used for data center space.
Apple has yet to confirm its plans for the functionality of the new data center, although speculation has centered on a major push into cloud-based storage that would allow users to stream their media libraries to a broad array of Internet-connected devices.

Apple's initial phase of 500,000 square feet will already rank among the largest single-building data centers dedicated to a single company, and a doubling (or even more) of that would rival the largest data center campuses in use today.

Article Link: Apple's NC Data Center Plot Larger Than Originally Thought
 

kernkraft

macrumors 68020
Jun 25, 2009
2,456
1
Wow, fantastic news! But actually, who cares?! Where are the new MacBook Pros?!


Oops, I just posted. What a hypocrite I am!:)
 

talkingfuture

macrumors 65816
Dec 4, 2008
1,216
0
The back of beyond.
I still reckon this enormous data centre will comprise one room painted completely white and housing just a single Xserve in the centre of the room. Its Steve Job's Time Machine backup! :D
 

rowanmwilliams

macrumors member
Jan 25, 2007
78
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Sydney, Australia
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I can not wait to find out what Apple do with this. Free MobileMe, add a suite of online iLife/iWork programs, or just some "magical" form of cloud based computing?
 

RalfTheDog

macrumors 68020
Feb 23, 2010
2,115
1,869
Lagrange Point
I wonder if Apple has another one or twenty of these sites ready to start construction tomorrow. They will need several if they want to be ready for the announcement of their new Google killing search engine.
 

rangerflite2010

macrumors newbie
Oct 24, 2010
5
0
Theme Park

Its really going to be a theme park utilizing technology from the Sony Acquisition. Much like Disney world they will have the Steve Jobs Animatronic Theater, and a Small World ride. Unfortunately, Japan will not be included in the small world ride. All for only $999.
 

alent1234

macrumors 603
Jun 19, 2009
5,688
170
I wonder if Apple has another one or twenty of these sites ready to start construction tomorrow. They will need several if they want to be ready for the announcement of their new Google killing search engine.


way too late

Google and Microsoft bought up all the good dark fiber years ago. they literally own parts of the internet while Apple has to go through AT&T
 

kernkraft

macrumors 68020
Jun 25, 2009
2,456
1
I still reckon this enormous data centre will comprise one room painted completely white and housing just a single Xserve in the centre of the room. Its Steve Job's Time Machine backup! :D

With his short emails, his backup will fit on a floppy disc. Oops... There's no drive for it anymore. You see, Jobs? You made a BIG mistake! What do you do now?! What do you do when you could save your emails on a floppy disc but you cannot?! Hahahah! (evil laugh) Hahahah! Hahahah! (Even more evil laugh)

(OK, I'm going now.)
 

Nicky G

macrumors 65816
Mar 24, 2002
1,148
1,284
Baltimore
I think it's fascinating that Apple is making a major, major play here, and nobody seems to know for sure what the heck this is going to be used for! Very exciting! Sure, media-streaming seems like a possibility, vague "cloud storage" offerings, an expanded Mobile Me, etc. etc. But none of those speculations really nails it in my opinion. Apple always has a twist on what they do -- and I can't wait to see what that twist ends up being.
 

franswa za

macrumors 6502a
Mar 24, 2010
582
26
south africa
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I can not wait to find out what Apple do with this. Free MobileMe, add a suite of online iLife/iWork programs, or just some "magical" form of cloud based computing?

i don't think that MobileMe will ever become free, not with SJ just loving money- if it does i'll shove my 2 ipods up my pudada! :eek:

it might become slightly cheaper?!
 

RalfTheDog

macrumors 68020
Feb 23, 2010
2,115
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Lagrange Point
way too late

Google and Microsoft bought up all the good dark fiber years ago. they literally own parts of the internet while Apple has to go through AT&T

Apple has quit a bit of cash and Microsoft could probably use some money. If Apple were to purchase up all of Microsoft's bandwidth, Microsoft could turn Live into a rebranded version of Google. This would bring in some cash for Microsoft and they could make some money selling services they don't need to support.
 

0815

macrumors 68000
Jul 9, 2010
1,793
1,065
here and there but not over there
i don't think that MobileMe will ever become free, not with SJ just loving money- if it does i'll shove my 2 ipods up my pudada! :eek:

it might become slightly cheaper?!

Don't care about free MobileMe - turn MobileMe into something like dropbox and I'm willing to pay good money for it. (Or just buy dropbox and merge it with MobileMe)
 

mlts22

macrumors 6502a
Oct 28, 2008
540
35
I think it's fascinating that Apple is making a major, major play here, and nobody seems to know for sure what the heck this is going to be used for! Very exciting! Sure, media-streaming seems like a possibility, vague "cloud storage" offerings, an expanded Mobile Me, etc. etc. But none of those speculations really nails it in my opinion. Apple always has a twist on what they do -- and I can't wait to see what that twist ends up being.

My guess is more boring. The App Store likely will have antipiracy measures, and each downloaded application for OS X will be encrypted/personalized before being downloaded to the user. This used to be done by iTunes, but I'm sure this data center (which if the rumors hold true are using IBM and Sun high end servers) will be doing the encoding serverside.

Of course, streaming wouldn't be bad, but all streaming requires is bandwidth, and Apple and Microsoft use providers like Akamai. Since Apple is having a data center, they must need something CPU based that they can't do anywhere else for security reasons, thus my hypothesis on FairPlay encoding of apps/applications.
 

carmenodie

macrumors 6502a
Apr 25, 2008
775
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Apple telecom!
 

sammich

macrumors 601
Sep 26, 2006
4,305
268
Sarcasmville.
Wouldn't it make sense to have multiple sites for high bandwidth applications like a cloud datacenter? If you put everything in one spot it'll be a bottleneck.
 

Riemann Zeta

macrumors 6502a
Feb 12, 2008
661
0
NSA data surveillance center? Reality distortion field generator substation? Steve Jobs' new mansion/command center?
 

roocka

macrumors regular
Sep 11, 2007
134
0
Indianapolis
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I believe apple will go into search in a very big way. Imagine if apple only gets 5% of the entire search market. That is a LOT of money. Now imagine if they kill yahoo and Bing. Then Google will be next on the serving platter.

Hopefully apple buys Netlist and then Wolfram Alpha. Then they can execute this strategy to perfection.
 
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