Aerial Photos of Apple's Oregon Data Center Site - MacRumorsOpen MenuShow RoundupsShow Forums menuVisit ForumsOpen Sidebar
Skip to Content

Aerial Photos of Apple's Oregon Data Center Site

Following up on its aerial tour of Apple's North Carolina data center earlier this year, Wired has again taken to the skies to get a glimpse of Apple's data center site in Prineville, Oregon.

prineville data center site
While construction on the first of two 338,000 square-foot buildings planned for the site is just getting started, Apple's initial "tactical data center" is already in place.

Apple finished this building earlier this year, but just south of it, you can see what will be the site of its much larger 338,000-square-foot data center. Apple wants to eventually build two of these monster data centers on the 160-acre site, but right now, there’s no sign of the second facility.

prineville tactical data center
Apple's tactical data center in Prineville

The photos also show the close proximity of Apple's project to Facebook's twin data centers. Facebook's first 330,000 square-foot data center opened last year, and the second one is nearing completion.

Apple has been working quickly to expand its data center capacity, opening its North Carolina data center last year and earlier this year announcing both the Oregon project and another one in Nevada as it seeks to support the rapidly growing needs of its digital stores and iCloud.

Popular Stories

Apple Event Logo

Apple Just Released a New Accessory

Monday May 4, 2026 8:13 am PDT by
Apple today released a new Pride Edition Sport Loop for the Apple Watch. The band features a rainbow design with 11 colors of woven nylon yarns. The new Pride Edition Sport Loop is available to order now on Apple.com and in the Apple Store app in 40mm, 42mm, and 46mm sizes, and it will be available at Apple Store locations starting later this week. In the U.S., the band costs $49. There...
iOS 27 on iPhone 17 1

iOS 27 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Saturday May 2, 2026 8:43 am PDT by
Apple is expected to unveil iOS 27 during its WWDC 2026 keynote on June 8, and there are already many rumored features and changes for iPhones. The first developer beta of iOS 27 will likely be available immediately following the keynote, and a public beta typically follows in July. Following beta testing, the software update should be released to all users with a compatible iPhone in...
Apple Announces 2026 Pride Band Watch Face and iPhone Wallpaper Article 2

iOS 26.5 Coming Soon With These New Features

Monday May 4, 2026 8:40 am PDT by
iOS 26.5 is expected to be released next week, following more than a month of beta testing. The update is relatively minor, but there are a couple of new features and changes across the operating system that we have recapped below. iOS 26.5 lays the groundwork for end-to-end encryption for RCS in the Messages app and ads in the Apple Maps app, and it will include a new Pride wallpaper and a...

Top Rated Comments

175 months ago
Is this on Hoth?
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
175 months ago
@topic: I think it is very good this datacenter uses 100% renewable energy. What will Greenpeace say now?

Lots of squirrels are now homeless.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
175 months ago
What's a 'tactical data centre'?

Wondering the same thing.

As opposed to a strategic data centre? Who knows?

It's a temporary/popup datacenter. If you look at the closeup of it, you'll notice you've got one main (Rather temporary looking) building, and shipping containers along the side of it. Each of those shipping containers is kitted out a a mini datacenter.

The trailer parked up behind those, will likely be the backup generator for the temporary server farm.

They are fairly common now, however really shouldnt be used for something as important/mission critical as iCloud IMO. I've seen a few providers resort to using these only to have it all go tits up when anything happened weather wise.

I guess it's all down to how well built they are. Quite a few companies make and use these now. HP, IBM, Sun, Google, Cisco, Toshiba to name a few.

Sun provide a bunch of great videos showing their 'Project Blackbox' datacenter in a shipping container: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=svLdboZdfQ0
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
175 months ago
seriously, who cares. just make the damn things work and provide an excellent user experience.
This is part of the strategy to 'make the damn things work'. If the structure of how they are doing that does not interest you that's cool. I am a longstanding geek who is very interested in how they plan on providing the services they promise. I also grew up in Oregon so this is doubly of interest to me.

So I care, that's who.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
orbital~debris Avatar
175 months ago
What's a 'tactical data centre'?
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Shearwater Avatar
175 months ago
If they have used Apple Maps this may not even be Oregon!!...:eek:
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Related Apple News: Education | Travel | News | Reviews | Sport