Facebook building deep storage buildings at data centers

Remember that third building that Facebook reportedly is building at its data center in Prineville, Oregon? Turns out that building isn’t a third regular data center, but a deep storage facility, according to Facebook execs on a tour of the Oregon data center.

The building, which will potentially be 84,000 square feet, will be filled with disc or flash storage and will act as the “backup to the backup to the backup,” storage for the facility’s data, explained Facebook’s Ken Patchett.

Facebook will be able to rapidly power up the systems if something happens to the other backup systems. A live storage environment, with spinning discs, isn’t an efficient way to provide backup storage, said Facebook execs.

Facebook is also building a deep storage facility at its data center in North Carolina, said Facebook’s Tom Furlong.



GigaOM