White space is the most expensive space per square foot for most organizations. I respectfully disagree with the theme of this post and there is an alternative viewpoint. The bottom-line is construction cost of a 25,000 square foot data center is cheaper than building a 50,000 data center at the same power density.

At the heart of this debate is the method, effectiveness and reliability of cooling high density. Airflow cooling with a raised floor, drop ceiling and containment as identified in this blog post is conventional thinking where data centers are designed the way they were 20 years ago. However, there are many "proven" alternative designs that challenge the status quo and support low- to high-density requirements more effectively.

In 1955, the conventional wisdom of the airline industry was commercial aircraft must have a propeller because naturally jet propulsion would cause undue stress on an aircraft causing it to break apart in flight. Enter the "jet age" when Boeing jet test pilot Alvin "Tex" Johnston challenged conventional wisdom by doing barrel rolls in the first prototype 707 in front of 250,000 people.