Perth Data Centre & Colocation Guide 2026

If your business runs its own servers, sooner or later they outgrow the comms cupboard. The air-con struggles, a power blip takes everything down, and someone has to drive in at 2 am when a drive fails. Colocation fixes that by moving your hardware into a purpose-built data centre while you keep ownership and control.

This guide explains what colocation is, what actually matters when you compare facilities, which data centres operate in Perth, what it typically costs, and a checklist to work through before you sign anything. We’re a Perth colocation provider ourselves, so we’ve stuck to facts each operator publishes and linked to the sources so you can check them.

What is colocation?

With colocation, you supply the hardware (servers, storage, firewalls, switches) and the data centre supplies everything around it:

• Space: from a single rack unit (1U) up to quarter, half or full racks, cages or suites.
• Power: conditioned, backed-up power delivered to your rack.
• Cooling: controlled temperature and humidity so your gear isn’t cooking.
• Physical security: controlled access, monitoring and fire suppression.
• Connectivity: access to carriers, internet transit and cross-connects.

You keep full control of the operating system, software and data. That’s the main difference from cloud or managed hosting, where the provider owns the hardware.

Colocation suits businesses that already own servers, need predictable monthly costs, run workloads that are costly in public cloud (large storage, GPU compute, steady 24/7 loads), or need to know exactly where their data sits.

If you’d rather not own hardware, renting is the alternative. See our dedicated servers in Perth (from $199/month*), Perth VPS hosting (from $39/month*), or web hosting in Perth (from $59/month*).

Colocation, dedicated servers or cloud?

These three options are often compared, and many businesses end up using a mix:

	Colocation	Dedicated server	Public cloud
Who owns the hardware	You	The provider	The provider
Who manages the operating system	You (or a managed service)	You or the provider	You
Cost pattern	Predictable monthly fee plus your hardware purchase	Predictable monthly fee	Usage-based, can vary month to month
Best for	Steady workloads, existing hardware, specialist gear	Businesses that want a whole server without buying one	Spiky or short-term workloads
Data location	The exact facility you choose	The provider’s facility	The region you choose, run by the cloud provider

A common pattern for Perth businesses is to keep core systems such as file servers, practice management, databases and backups in a local facility, and use cloud services for email or collaboration. The right split depends on your workloads, budget and obligations.

What to look for in a Perth data centre

1. Power

Power is the main thing you’re paying for. Ask:

• UPS redundancy. “N” is the bare minimum capacity. “N+1” adds one spare component. “2N” means two fully independent systems, so either one can carry the whole load on its own.
• Per-rack power. How many kW can each rack draw? GPU servers draw far more than a typical web server.
• Metering. Is power charged as a flat allowance or metered?

2. Cooling

Equipment that runs hot fails early. Ask about cooling redundancy (N+1 means one spare cooling unit beyond what the load needs), hot and cold aisle layout, and whether the facility can handle high-density racks.

3. Fire suppression

Water sprinklers and servers don’t mix. Many data centres use gaseous suppression systems that put out fire without damaging electronics. Ask what’s installed and how it’s tested.

4. Connectivity

A data centre is only as useful as the networks inside it. Check:

• Which carriers and internet providers are on site or can be delivered.
• Whether you can bring your own carrier (carrier-neutral) or must use the operator’s.
• Cross-connect pricing and lead times.
• Links to cloud on-ramps or internet exchanges if you need them.

PeeringDB is a free public database where networks list the facilities they’re present in. It’s a quick way to see how well connected a site is.

5. Location

Location affects latency, access and risk. If your users and staff are in WA, a Perth facility removes the trip to the east coast. Public data from WonderNetwork recorded Perth to Sydney round-trip pings of about 46 ms between 21 September and 5 October 2026. See our Perth latency comparison for more routes and how to measure your own. Also think about practical access: parking, loading, after-hours entry and how far your team has to drive.

6. Data sovereignty

Where your data physically sits, and who controls the company holding it, can matter for privacy obligations and client contracts. Under the Privacy Act 1988, Australian Privacy Principle 8 places obligations on organisations that disclose personal information to overseas recipients (OAIC APP 8 guidelines). Keeping data in an Australian facility, with backups also in Australia, makes these questions simpler to answer. Our data sovereignty explainer for Perth law firms goes into more detail.

7. Support and remote hands

When something needs to be rebooted, swapped or re-cabled, can you call someone on site? Ask about remote hands rates, response times and how jobs are logged.

Perth data centres compared

Perth has a mix of large national and global operators and smaller local facilities. Below is a factual summary of what each operator publishes. Specifications change, so check with each provider directly. We haven’t listed anyone else’s prices; ask each provider for a quote.

Operator	Facility	Location	What the operator or public sources describe
NEXTDC	P1 Perth	4 Millrose Dr, Malaga (about 13 km north-east of the CBD)	10MW+ facility with 3,000 m² of technical space; NEXTDC describes it as home to local AWS Direct Connect and Azure ExpressRoute on-ramps. About 100 networks listed on PeeringDB. (NEXTDC, PeeringDB)
NEXTDC	P2 Perth	Perth CBD	20MW+ facility interconnected with P1. About 51 networks listed on PeeringDB. (NEXTDC, PeeringDB)
Equinix	PE1	3 Tully Rd, East Perth	Equinix’s original Perth IBX. (Equinix)
Equinix	PE2 and PE3	Lemnos St, Shenton Park	Adjacent buildings joined by a secure link bridge. PE3 opened in December 2021 with initial capacity of about 700 cabinets. The campus gives access to the Australia Singapore Cable, Indigo and Oman Australia Cable systems. About 42 networks listed on PeeringDB. (Equinix media release, PeeringDB)
Vocus	PER01 and PER02	1 William St, Perth; 5 Watts Pl, Bentley	Carrier-operated facilities; PER01 has about 28 networks listed on PeeringDB. (PeeringDB PER01, PeeringDB PER02)
Fujitsu	Malaga	16 Mulgul Rd, Malaga	Listed on PeeringDB with a small number of networks. (PeeringDB)
DC Alliance	Pier DC	1 Martin Place, Canning Vale	Colocation, cages and remote hands; acquired by Singapore-based DC Alliance. (DC Alliance, ARN)
PureColo	Perth P1	37-39 Robinson Ave, Belmont	Acquired by Carrier Connect from Nexion. (DCD, PeeringDB)
STACK Infrastructure	Perth campus	Wangara	Published plans for a large-scale campus aimed at hyperscale and large enterprise. (STACK)
Green Racks	Osborne Park edge data centre	Osborne Park, Perth WA 6017	Australian-owned, 10 racks, 2N UPS (150kVA), N+1 cooling, NOVEC 1230 fire suppression. (Our facility)

PeeringDB network counts as listed on 5 October 2026. Counts change, and not every network registers on PeeringDB.

Big facility or edge facility?

The large carrier-neutral sites in Malaga, the CBD and Shenton Park are built for scale: hundreds of networks, direct cloud on-ramps and big power. If you need many racks, multiple carriers or direct submarine cable access, they’re the obvious shortlist.

A smaller edge facility like ours suits a different buyer: a Perth business with a handful of servers, a law or engineering firm that wants its data close by, or a team that wants to deal directly with the people running the room. You can see the setup on our facility page.

There’s no single “best” Perth data centre. The right one depends on your scale, your connectivity needs and how much hands-on support you want.

Typical colocation costs

Colocation pricing usually has several parts:

1. Space: charged per rack unit, quarter, half or full rack.
2. Power: included as an allowance or metered separately. High-density gear costs more.
3. Connectivity: internet bandwidth, IP addresses and cross-connects.
4. Support: remote hands, usually billed hourly.
5. Setup: installation, cabling and onboarding.

For reference, here’s Green Racks’ current Osborne Park pricing:

Service	Price
1U colocation	$114.99/month*
Quarter rack (10U)	$574.99/month*
Half rack (21U)	$1,034.99/month*
Full rack (42U)	$1,724.99/month*
Managed colocation	from $200/month*
Remote hands	$75*-$110/hr*
Dedicated servers (we supply the hardware)	from $199/month*

See managed colocation for what’s covered. If you’re running AI or machine learning workloads, our AI infrastructure service offers NVIDIA Pro 4000 GPU capacity hosted in Perth.

When you compare quotes, compare like with like: the same rack size, power allowance, bandwidth and support level.

Colocation checklist

Before you shortlist

• List your hardware: number of servers, rack units and estimated power draw (kW).
• Decide how much growth room you need over the contract term.
• Identify your connectivity needs: carriers, bandwidth, cloud links.
• Check privacy, client contract or industry requirements for data location.
• Decide who in your team will need physical access.

Questions to ask every provider

• What is the UPS redundancy and battery runtime setup, and when was it last tested?
• What cooling redundancy is in place?
• What fire suppression system is installed?
• Which carriers are available, and can I bring my own?
• How is power charged: allowance or metered?
• What are the remote hands rates and response times?
• What are the access hours and security procedures?
• What are the contract length, notice period and exit terms?
• Can I inspect the facility before signing?

Before you move in

• Label every device and cable.
• Document IP addresses, VLANs and login details (stored securely).
• Confirm your backups are current and tested.
• Plan the cut-over window and a rollback plan.
• Book remote hands or an on-site install slot.

The bottom line

Perth is well served by data centres, from large interconnection hubs to local edge facilities. Start with your hardware, power and connectivity needs, check redundancy and support, and visit the site before you commit.

If a local, Australian-owned facility in Osborne Park sounds right, book a tour of our facility or talk to us about managed colocation.

Frequently asked questions

*Pricing subject to change; contact us for a quote.