With a new Nielsen study showing that Facebook accounts for 85 percent of the time spent on social networks, it makes sense that Facebook has decided to more than double the size of its data center currently under construction in rural Oregon.
Facebook, which recently opened an office in Austin—its first major U.S. office away from the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif.—said it will add a 160,000-square-foot “shell” to the $200 million, 147,000-square-foot data center already being built in Prineville, Ore. Prineville is just northeast of Bend.
“As business needs dictate, the shell will be built out to accommodate more servers,” Facebook announced.
The Prineville location will be Facebook’s first company-owned data center.
The first phase of the data center is scheduled to be completed during the first three months of 2011, said Tom Furlong, director of site operations for Facebook. The second phase is set for completion in early 2012.
Facebook recently announced it reached the 500-million-user milestone.
Facebook announced the Prineville project in January and broke ground shortly thereafter.
“We couldn’t be happier with our choice of location. The Prineville and Central Oregon communities have been excellent partners,” said Ken Patchett, Facebook’s data center manager.
During construction, 150 to 200 workers will be on the Oregon site on any given day. The Prineville data center will create 35 long-term jobs, Facebook said.
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