A rare look inside Apple’s expanding Reno data center

Like unicorn sightings and solar eclipses viewed from the same exact spot, getting an inside look at an Apple data center is a rare occurrence for the hoi polloi.

More: Apple CEO Tim Cook makes surprise visit for Reno facility groundbreaking

Chalk it up to trade secrets and other sensitive information. Well, that and the fact that you probably don’t want people tripping around a facility that hosts crucial data for Apple’s various services.

If you’re itching to see what it looks inside a facility that makes it possible to send those iMessages or pester Siri with all sorts of questions, the Reno Gazette-Journal had a chance to tour Apple’s Reno data center on Tuesday.

Whether you’re a tech aficionado or simply curious, here’s a sneak peek inside Apple’s expanding data center campus near the Biggest Little City.

It just works?

Below is a quick look at some of the technology inside Apple's Reno data center. The campus spans 1.1 million square feet on 1,700 acres of land and continues to expand. Apple is pouring an additional $1 billion into the facility on top of the $1.6 billion it already invested, said CEO Tim Cook, who made a surprise visit to the city as part of a groundbreaking event for a new Apple warehouse in downtown Reno on Wednesday. The Reno data center will account for 100 of Apple’s 700 total employees in Nevada. Construction for the data center’s expansion is also expected to employ 300 people.

A network room at Apple's Reno data center. The room serves as a primary network hub.

Cabling in one of the data center’s quarter-mile-long data center hallways. The hallways run down the center of the facility and connect multiple data halls. Each building has five clusters connected by a spine.

Employees install servers inside one of the data center’s hot aisles. A hot aisle can reach temperatures up to 105 degrees Fahrenheit.

A cold aisle with containment cubes. Each containment consists of two rows with a hot aisle in the center. Temperatures in the cold aisle can range from 65 degrees to 80 degrees, depending on outside temperatures. This is done to reduce energy usage.

A cooling room filtration wall that spans 150 feet. The filters bring in outdoor air that is filtered at two different levels before being sent to the data rooms.

The aptly named mixing room is where hot air from the server aisles is mixed with cold air from the outside. This shows the back side of a filter bank.

The cleaning room is the last stage in the server cooling process. The room ensures the air is always at the same temperature before it goes into a data room.

In case of a power outage, backup generators can be operated via one of these switchgear rooms. Note the use of analog displays.

Here is an array of the mammoth-sized generators at the Apple Reno data center.

Expansion continues at the Apple data center campus. Since announcing the initial $1 billion facility, Apple has increased its investment to $2 billion. The data center campus now spans 1.1 million square feet. The facility receives 100 percent of its power from renewable energy, specifically solar.

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