These are all really how long is a piece of string questions... Rather than asking how much can I make and how much do I need you need to take a step back and look at "What type of data centre do I need", "What clients do I want" and "What services am I offering".
These will all affect how much money you need to invest and your potential returns. For example if you're going for replacing the in-house data centre that a bank or financial company runs then you're going to need a tier-4 facility with high density space; this will be extremely expensive on the CapEx, will have longer sales cycles but will have higher recurring revenues than a lower density/tier facility.
In terms of what you can make again depends on the type of facility you're running for how much you can charge, location of the facility, additional services (managed) you're offering even down to how often you do maintenance/staffing levels/etc.
Data centre's in general require deep pockets for the first 12 - 18 months since the overall monthly running cost (excluding power) is the same for a data centre with 1 rack as it is for a data centre with 300 racks. As said further up we've seen that around 20 - 30% occupancy means you're covering these costs but it could take 12 months of very expensive OpEx before you get the to the operational breakeven point.
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A friend of mine started one in Singapore several years ago and he has had a record year last year. Business is still on the up and now he just purchased two new homes, various cars so I guess it can be very profitable.
That was a very nice information about Data Center business. I'd been thinking to start a small scale. Atleast reading this post gives me idea what it takes to setup a data center.
I bet that you can make loads and loads of money even with a small data center. I'd love to really have a data center of my own sometimes, when I grow up, that should be a good business.
And you can also lose tons of money...
Datacenters are just like any other regular business.