Huge new data centre for South Africa

Skerminkel said:
Thanks. Did not know that was a thing. Surely data storage/transfer is the NB thing for data centres. Ranking power consumption sounds like ranking cars according to engine displacement.
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Network capacity is more to do with the networks operating in the DC, and storage has to do with the individual clients/servers so it's not really a metric worth comparing.
 
Waylander said:
Network capacity is more to do with the networks operating in the DC, and storage has to do with the individual clients/servers so it's not really a metric worth comparing.
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OK, interesting. Still, isn't floor space then a better metric? More space = more servers.
 
Waylander said:
Think floor space would scale with power usage, but I'm not an expert so I don't know :p
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Power density is as important (or even more so) as floor space. When I run out of floor/rack space I can migrate to high density servers (eg. blades) - but only if I have sufficient power. If I only have 2kW to a rack, then I only have 2kW - upgrading that can be more challenging than increasing density. How much the rack can be upgraded to is determined by the power feed to the data centre location. The bigger that is, the more I have to grow into without costly upgrades (eg. having to upgrade the onsite transformers and medium/high voltage lines to the location down the track gets very costly - that's assuming Eskom/municipality can still provide it to you).
 
hashbang said:
Power density is as important (or even more so) as floor space. When I run out of floor/rack space I can migrate to high density servers (eg. blades) - but only if I have sufficient power. If I only have 2kW to a rack, then I only have 2kW - upgrading that can be more challenging than increasing density. How much the rack can be upgraded to is determined by the power feed to the data centre location. The bigger that is, the more I have to grow into without costly upgrades (eg. having to upgrade the onsite transformers and medium/high voltage lines to the location down the track gets very costly - that's assuming Eskom/municipality can still provide it to you).
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Most modern Data Centres are measured on Power availibility and efficiencies rather than white space.
 
hashbang said:
Power density is as important (or even more so) as floor space. When I run out of floor/rack space I can migrate to high density servers (eg. blades) - but only if I have sufficient power. If I only have 2kW to a rack, then I only have 2kW - upgrading that can be more challenging than increasing density. How much the rack can be upgraded to is determined by the power feed to the data centre location. The bigger that is, the more I have to grow into without costly upgrades (eg. having to upgrade the onsite transformers and medium/high voltage lines to the location down the track gets very costly - that's assuming Eskom/municipality can still provide it to you).
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This is helpful, thanks.
 
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