Video: E3's ever expanding Sydney Pegasus data centre

E3 Networks has taken out an option to lease a 1400 square metre space adjacent to its newly-opened Sydney Pegasus data centre, after filling most of its new server rooms before the build of the data centre was complete.

Linked gallery: Inside the expanding E3 Networks datacentre

Given a tour of the facility [see video and photo gallery], E3 Networks CEO Jon Eaves told iTnews that he had already sold out three and a half of four server rooms within the Sydney Pegasus Data Centre, the last room of which was still under construction.

Eaves said that if he doesn't sell the last portion of this upstairs server room by the middle of the year, he has "misjudged the market." His instinct is that demand for high powered data centre sites in outstripping supply so far.

What's already on offer

The high density Pegasus Sydney data centre was built in the industrial area of Alexandria with immediate access to some beefy local power infrastructure courtesy of a local printing plant.

Suite One is a 60 square metre room taken up by an APC-supplied pod, already filled with kit E3 has transferred across from its racks within the nearby Global Switch data centre. The suite uses 48 RU cabinets instead of 42 RU, with each cabinet rated at 14.4 kW (60 amps)

"We went with 48 RU to fit more in," Eaves said. "With 42 RU we just wouldn't get the most bang for our buck."

Eaves says the hot aisle containment technology within the APC pod enables the increased density within his data centre. The same number of servers that required six racks at Global Switch are taking up three and a half at E3. There is also two blade chassis in one cabinet, where previously they required a cabinet each.

Suite Two, a 110 square metre room, was booked off the plan by animation rendering house Dr D. We watched as contractors working for Dr D put together an APC pod for its supercomputing cluster. (We'll have a story on this later this afternoon).

Suite Three has 20 racks cabled up for a customer we aren't allowed to name, the cabinets for which took up around half of the 110 square metre room. The customer who booked these 20 racks has since doubled their order - they now want the whole room.

Upstairs from the first three suites is a fourth server room, still under construction. At 366 square metres, around half of this unfinished room is already booked out.

Connectivity is provided through a Cinenet fibre link to the Equinix data centre in Mascot and a Pipe Networks fibre link to the Global Switch data centre in Ultimo. Nextgen Networks has a point of presence 51m away and is building fibre network into E3 on behalf of a customer.

On the roof, E3 has a temporary 750 kVA generator and a small cooling unit on-site, but concrete plinths are in place to take a further four 481 kW chillers - the first of which arrived by 747 jumbo earlier this week and was craned onto the roof. You can see that on our photo gallery.

E3 plans to replace the temporary generator with two 2 Megawatt generators before the upper floor of the data centre is complete.