Because the Sacramento, California area is considered seismically neutral, many San Francisco Bay Area companies colocate their servers in the Sacramento region rather than within active seismic zones.
This also means several data center options for businesses in cities ranging from Sacramento to Rancho Cordova to Elk Grove to Davis.
Data centers come in different shapes and sizes. Still, they all ultimately serve the same purpose for businesses — a secured area for running essential business applications, hosting websites, and storing copies of critical data. These centers can play a role in business continuity.
The network infrastructure within data centers includes servers, routers, switches, firewalls, and storage systems. Other physical infrastructure components are air cooling, fire prevention equipment, and backup power supplies.
The location of these facilities is often associated with the presence of “diverse-path fiber,” which means service from two or more separate internet backbones entering the building. If one backbone is cut or otherwise compromised, there will be continued internet connectivity via the other pipe(s).
Here is an overview of nine data centers throughout the Greater Sacramento area.
Sacramento Data Center Providers
NTT Data Center
NTT Communications’ flagship data center is its 250,000-square-foot Sacramento CA1 building. The CA2 data center is at the same address.
NTT opened its CA3 data center under the former RagingWire brand in 2015.
In RagingWire’s promotional video (no soundtrack), the company seems to be targeting Silicon Valley and San Francisco companies with this facility.
QTS
Located near NTT’s CA3 building, QTS’s Sacramento facility is about a quarter the size of NTT’s.
QTS has 46,000 sq. ft. of 24″ raised floor space, a Zone 4 standard steel beam “super support” system, and roof space with access available for client antenna installations.
QTS has 23 data centers in the United States, including six in Virginia.
Succeed.net
Succeed.net’s “mini” data center site is in downtown Sacramento. The company offers 1/4 rack, 1/2 rack, and full rack pricing.
DataNOC
DataNOC’s Sacramento colocation facility includes offerings for SMBs, with pricing for 1/4 rack, 1/2 rack, full rack, and full cabinets. In addition, the staff is on-site 24/7/365 to assist customers.
Rancho Cordova Colocation Facilities
There is a cluster of four colocation facilities within several blocks in Rancho Cordova. DataNOC is not far away.
Datacate
Datacate has 5,000 feet of raised flooring in its Rancho Cordova colocation facility. The site is staffed 24/7 and has both battery and generator power backup. In addition, the Datacate building has a fully climate-controlled environment.
Datacate emphasizes its local, personal service.
Sungard Availability Services
At almost 30,000 sq. ft. of raised floor space, Sungard’s facility is the largest in the Rancho Cordova data center cluster.
Sungard Availability Services has hardened data and recovery centers at 45 worldwide locations. The company focuses on ensuring its customers are resilient in the face of many threats to data security and business continuity.
EdgeConneX
According to EdgeConneX, “The Sacramento EdgeConneX Edge Data Center® (EDC) has been purpose-built and precisely locator to provide a secure colocation facility for customers wishing to deliver content and applications to local-market consumers, with the lowest possible latency.
Partnering with network and cable operators at the local level, our carrier-neutral facility guarantees the shortest and fastest routes for delivering content to local market subscribers (consumer and enterprise) and Internet customers.”
This SAC01 facility has 6,700 sq. ft. of raised floor for tenant racks.
Conscious Data Centers
Conscious Data Centers (CCDC) is a Tier III facility emphasizing green.
CCDC has a dedicated power substation attached to the facility to provide a reliable power source.
Orthogonal Cooling™ is a patented data center cooling technology that enables CCDC to operate the center efficiently as possible.
McClellan Park
McClellan is a large industrial and office park located just off Interstate 80.
Prime Data Centers
Prime Data Centers has fully leased out its SAC1 data center and is planning a SAC2 data center.
Quest
Quest has a High Availability Business Center (HABC) and Business Resumption Center (BRC) in McClellan Park.
Quest’s emphasis is the ability to continue business operations after a disaster. Beyond data services, there are easily accessible workspaces and facilities on the campus.
Map of Sacramento, CA data centers
A Changing Business Model
Competition from Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure has driven smaller data center competitors to expand their offerings beyond just colocation services.
Some companies listed above now have a comprehensive suite of offerings, including digital transformation and managed IT services.
There are many data center options available for Northern California businesses. Some sites are geared toward smaller companies. Others are principally set up for larger Bay Area enterprises.
Most Sacramento data centers offer tours. A site tour will help you assess the fit of a given facility to your business.
