Exclusive: Inside Equinix's Sydney3 data centre

Equinix has started accepting the first customer equipment in stage one of its new Sydney3 (SY3) data centre.

Linked gallery: Photos: Equinix's Sydney3 data centre

The $77 million first stage was in "final commissioning" during iTnews' tour of the facility, with production power expected to be switched on to 1,000 racks this month.

Equinix Australia's managing director Darren Mann said the centre was "open for business", with the company taking orders from customers while "finishing touches" were added.

Stage one was under heat load testing when iTnews was provided exclusive access. The data centre operator had purchased approximately 3,000 fan heaters for the job.

Each of the three stages of construction would house two data halls that allowed for general co-location and private cages in a 30/70 split.

Plant in the data halls was colour-coded: grey for primary and orange for redundant infrastructure.

Among the plant used was Emerson Chloride Trinergy uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units, which Mann said offered Equinix "the highest efficiency for a double conversion UPS", and Trane chillers.

Equinix had installed a mix of centrifugal (high load) and low load chillers in the plant room. The centrifugal chiller with rapid restart offered high efficiency at full or part load operation, and was complimented by the low load chillers, Mann said.

• View our exclusive photo tour of the Equinix Sydney3 data centre.
• View our photo tour inside Equinix's nearby Sydney1 and Sydney2 data centres.