5 strangest places where your data is stored

We review the rarest to assemble data servers in the most unlikely places around the globe. When using any Internet service, all related information are stored on computers called servers that make data centers, large facilities specially designed to keep them.

And that is when many servers are placed together in one place, begin to appear needs that can not cover any location; for example, you have to make sure that you have adequate cooling for the processors and hard drives never reached critical temperatures. And of course, you need large amounts of energy to make things work.

Usually, data centers are in very boring sites, such as industrial estates, warehouses or similar places. And then there are times when a company comes up with crazy, and assembles a data center in an absurd place. Now let’s go over some of those special places.

In a nuclear fuel factory

The German city of Hanau would have a factory that would produce rods enriched uranium and plutonium for use in nuclear power plants, but did not get going and ended up abandoned.

Internet company 1 & 1 decided to use the location to mount the servers, using energy from renewable sources.

In a cave under a mountain

The company Iron Montain lived up to its name when the company decided to set up a data center under a mountain.

More specifically, it is a limestone mine 400 hectares, known as the “Room 48”. There is only one entrance and exit, so it is considered one of the safest places in the world.

In the Arctic Circle

Facebook decided it needed to better cool their servers, so what better to throw as far north as possible?Thus, there was born the “Node Pole”, which although not in the same north pole, yes it is close to the town of Lulea in Sweden.

The installation makes the most of the harsh environment, obtaining energy from nearby rivers and cooling electrical components with the same north wind blowing in the area. Thanks to this only need 30% of the generators that normally uses a facility like this.

In a micronation that nobody recognizes

The Principality of Sealand is one of the rare places in the world. It is a maritime platform built in the Second World War, after being abandoned by the British government was the basis for one family may plant in it and autoproclamase as a country. Since then no nation has recognized its existence and is officially the United Kingdom, but that has not prevented their owners try to do business with it.

During the 2000s, taking advantage of the rise in the web industry, Sealand HavenCo created the company that promised servers whose data would be safe from the authorities of any country and even buy Pirate Bay was raised. But in 2008 the company ceased to exist in the overnight, and since then is just one more to add to this platform curiosity, although in 2013 there were attempts to revive her.

Under the sea

Microsoft has been the last to experiment with this to mount a data center in an absurd place. In its case, it has been the seabed. Last August its engineers placed a huge capsule in the Pacific Ocean, although the depth was not much, just 10 meters.

Inside the capsule, there was a single server, with pressurized nitrogen to maintain its temperature controlled and all kinds of sensors to test the effect that the sea had in its operation. The aim is that in the future these servers work with the energy of the waves and chilled with seawater.