Apple Considering Doubling Size of North Carolina Data Center?

[MacRumors]

Apple's North Carolina data center under construction in February 2010
In a brief piece outlining some of his thoughts on how the new MacBook Air may play into Apple's strategy for cloud-based media storage, All Things Digital's John Paczkowski notes in passing that he has heard that Apple is already considering doubling the size of its massive North Carolina data center to one million square feet, despite that fact that it hasn't even officially opened yet.

Steve Jobs says the MacBook Air is the future of the MacBook and the future of the notebook as well. But if that's to be the case, the machine - and Apple's ecosystem - needs to evolve a bit more to appeal to that strata of user tethered to the high capacity hard drives that the Air has summarily dispatched.

This being Apple we're talking about, that evolution is likely already well underway and perhaps - perhaps - being engineered at the company's massive new North Carolina data center. With its 500,000 square feet of data center space (currently, sources tell me that Apple is considering doubling that) that facility has been built for something. And what better use to put it to than the cloud services that might completely eliminate the need for high capacity hard drives and give the Air storage to match its performance characteristics.

Apple announced in July that the new facility, which is already five times the size of its existing one in Newark, California, will open by the end of this year, and the company made a hiring push earlier this month signaling that the company appears to still be on track.

Article Link: Apple Considering Doubling Size of North Carolina Data Center?

 

[WiiDSmoker]

I'd rather house my own data locally. K thanks bye

 

[Poll Smoker]

K thanks bye

That's hilarious! I'm guessing that just got to Tennessee?

 

[Cheffy Dave]

Love to be a fly on the wall at Apple and know all that is planned for the future

 

[TMar]

Damn, use it before you feel you need more..

 

[dlewis23]

Well from the direction it looks like they are going. Sticking everything in the "cloud" They are not only going to need to double the size they are going to need to open a second data center.

 

[guzhogi]

If true, I wonder how they'll double the space. Whether they'll just add more floors or expand horizontally. From the picture, they look like they have plenty of room to expand horizontally. And I'm sure it'll be very hard to add more floors with causing an interruption of service.

 

[nik911sc]

Hot Air

If the future is in the cloud with MBA styled devices then we are long way away given Apple did not bother to include a SIM slot for data in it's new MBA.

 

[Full of Win]

Perhaps this is why they paid those local residents a couple million of dollars for their house, and more importantly land, that was worth ~100,000 on the open market.

Love to be a fly on the wall at Apple and know all that is planned for the future

They would likely be planing to call an exterminator in the future to get rid of in insect on the wall. That, or get a fly swatter.

 

[Veinticinco]

I'd rather house my own data locally. K thanks bye

Quite.

 

[Lordedmond]

I wonder where they keep the off site backup of the data

 

[Žalgiris]

If your ISP sucks who cares how many terabytes you have in the cloud. I will keep my stuff at home too.

 

[tigres]

Fix MM first, along with your SMTP and other transfer services, then we can talk.

 

[blackcrayon]

And what better use to put it to than the cloud services that might completely eliminate the need for high capacity hard drives and give the Air storage to match its performance characteristics.

Maybe I'm being cynical this morning, but I read that as "give the Air slow storage to match its slow performance characteristics.

 

[Merthyrboy]

The mystery surrounding this thing is huge. Can't really put a cloth over the data ctenre but you can with the final plans.

 

[Caliber26]

I'd rather house my own data locally. K thanks bye

I kinda have to agree with you on this one. Don't get me wrong, I like the concept and I'm sure I'll use it, but only to an extent. Don't know much I trust putting my stuff somewhere else.

If the future is in the cloud with MBA styled devices then we are long way away given Apple did not bother to include a SIM slot for data in it's new MBA.

Of course not. They want you to feel the need to upgrade to a new machine by then. Clouding is in the future. This is not something we'll see within the next few weeks. By the time they've got all their ducks in a row and ready to go, I'm positive a new generation of computers will be making their debut.

 

[alent1234]

I wonder where they keep the off site backup of the data

They probably use Iron Mountain to come over and pick up the tapes

 

[dlewis23]

If the future is in the cloud with MBA styled devices then we are long way away given Apple did not bother to include a SIM slot for data in it's new MBA.

Your a long way off because your internet connection isn't fast enough yet. For everything or most of your stuff to be in the cloud you need a really fast connection so you can pull the data down quickly. People are not going to wait to be waiting for a file to download when they could have it instantly by storing it on there computer.

If true, I wonder how they'll double the space. Whether they'll just add more floors or expand horizontally. From the picture, they look like they have plenty of room to expand horizontally. And I'm sure it'll be very hard to add more floors with causing an interruption of service.

I would think they would just build another building where that giant parking lot sits right now. Its probably not the best idea to start building another building on top of a active datacenter.

 

[alent1234]

The mystery surrounding this thing is huge. Can't really put a cloth over the data ctenre but you can with the final plans.

MS with the same revenue as Apple has lots of datacenters around the world. Apple was behind the power curve in using Akamai

 

[NinjaHERO]

It wouldn't surprise me if the Air becomes their main computer. They just gotta get the chip speeds up comparable to the pros.

 

[RonD69]

For the most part...

I'd rather house my own data locally. K thanks bye

...I would agree with you. Files like photos and illustrations, I'd house it in the clouds so all my pcs can get to them. But for sensitive data files, like financials, I'll keep it locally...and encrypted...and offline.

 

[goobot]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

I WANTZ BIGGER!

 

[jagger27]

Could this be to power the Mac app store? Maybe to give a boost to the iOS app store?

 

[litchie]

data safety

I prefer to put my data on some server; it is like putting your money in a bank, more safe and convenient so you don't have to carry the data around. But of course, my private data will always be encrypted.

 

[guzhogi]

I would think they would just build another building where that giant parking lot sits right now. Its probably not the best idea to start building another building on top of a active datacenter.

What I meant was expand the existing building so it's a single, even bigger building, not 2 separate buildings. Kinda like if you were to expand your house. You wouldn't build a totally new house; rather, you might knock down a wall and add on.