The first phase of the Topaz project is a 240,000 square foot building housing three 20,000 square foot data center halls - one for eBay Marketplace, one for PayPal.com, and a third hall for expansion space. The master plan for the site calls for four phases, which will allow eBay to consolidate leased data center space currently spread across three states. The facility has 7.2 megawatts of capacity in phase 1, with a 30 megawatt substation on site.
Here's a look at some of the energy efficiency features built into the new facility:
- eBay is using 400V power distribution, allowing it to eliminate an entire level of transformers and deliver 230V to the servers, saving 2 percent in power costs.
- The data center is cooled using a water-side economizer system, which is supported by a 400,000 gallon cistern that collects rain water. eBay expects to use outside air to cool the data center for more than half the year.
- Inside the data center, eBay will use in-row cooling units for close-coupled cooling, and a hot air containment system to isolate the hot and cold air within the server area.
- eBay says it can support power densities of up to 30kw per rack using this design. (Source: Datacenter Knowledge)