India data-centre decommissioning, partial racks accepted.
We work with Equinix-grade data centres and their tenants on 3-year refresh cycles. Single-event pulls of 100–500 servers are routine. Partial-rack pulls are explicitly welcome — we don't require whole-cage commitments to give you a fair price. Quote within 2 hours, site survey within 24, uplift typically inside 7–14 days.
Built for the SG data-centre cluster.
India has roughly 70 operational data centres across the city-state. We've coordinated pickups, decommissions and uplifts across the major cluster operators — and routinely service single-rack and multi-rack pulls without the 6-week onboarding cycle you'd expect from a publicly-listed prime contractor.
- Equinix corridor · SG1, SG2, SG3, SG4, SG5 — multi-rack and floor-suite pulls.
- Westside cluster · Jurong + Manesar industrial belt DC quarter — bulk uplift and India domestic + cross-border SAARC.
- Bengaluru ITPL + East · Bengaluru Whitefield / Outer Ring Road + east-side colocation — tenant-side decom.
- Mainstream operators · ST Telemedia, Digital Realty, NTT, Iron Mountain, Telin, Yondr — coordinated.
- Carrier hotels · Multi-tenant carrier facilities — partial pulls without disrupting neighbours.
Scope of a India data-centre decommission
Every job is project-managed. Here's what's typically in scope.
- ♦ Pre-pickup asset inventory and physical-tag reconciliation against your CMDB.
- ♦ De-cabling, de-racking, palletisation; rack frames stripped or returned.
- ♦ Locked, GPS-tracked transit to our secure facility within India.
- ♦ On-site or in-facility data destruction to NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 1 + IEEE 2883-2022.
- ♦ Per-serial wipe log or shred batch ID — both formats supported.
- ♦ Floor-space release: photo-confirmed empty cage / tile-clear within agreed window.
- ♦ Asset disposition decision per device: re-market, refurbish, or destruction-only.
- ♦ Settlement: INR buyback proceeds applied within 5 business days of disposition.
Often packaged with
Data destruction
Wiping, degaussing, shredding. Methods chosen per device per NIST 800-88 decision tree.
Read more →Asset recovery
Maximise residual value via refurbish-and-remarket through South Asia trader channels.
Read more →India domestic + cross-border SAARC
We can route refurbished kit to Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Gurugram, Noida — legal-clean exports from SG.
Read more →Real timeline, real timestamps.
From Manesar industrial belt to Loyang, partial-rack to full-cage exits.
India's data-centre cluster runs across four broad zones. The west — Manesar industrial belt, Jurong, Pioneer — concentrates the largest hyperscale builds and bulk colocation operators. The east — Bengaluru ITPL, Loyang, Pasir Ris — carries the bank technology centres and the MNC regional-HQ DCs. The central zone — Ayer Rajah, Pasir Panjang, Telok Blangah — runs carrier-hotel and government-adjacent facilities. The north — Woodlands, Sungei Kadut, Kranji — holds the cross-border-corridor adjacency and several tenant-grade DCs. We service all four.
Operators we have worked with as tenant-side or coordinated decom partners include the major SG cluster names — Equinix's SG1 through SG5, ST Telemedia Global Data Centres, Digital Realty / Digital India, Keppel DC, NTT Global Data Centers, Iron Mountain, Telin and Singtel-operated facilities, and Yondr-class hyperscale builds. Tenant-side decom in any of these is standard scope. We coordinate with the operator on cage access, vehicle parking, security clearance, and adjacency-tenant impact before pickup day.
Floor-space-release receipts go out within 24 hours of the final pickup and are structured to match the operator's typical re-lease workflow — photo-confirmed empty cage, U-position-by-U-position inventory tally, sign-off from our pickup team, asset-list reconciliation. Most operators accept this format directly into their re-lease process without follow-up paperwork.
What week 1, week 2, week 3 actually look like for a 1-cage exit
- ♦ Day 1 — RFQ + asset list arrives via email or our /sell-to-us/ form.
- ♦ Day 1 (within 2 hours) — indicative INR quote with per-line residual estimates.
- ♦ Day 2 — site survey at the cage; reconciliation against your CMDB; operator-coordination call.
- ♦ Day 3 — Statement of Work signed; NDA executed; per-asset disposition decision locked.
- ♦ Day 4 — destruction-method matrix agreed (Clear / Purge / Destroy per device class).
- ♦ Day 5–7 — pickup window; sealed-load discipline; GPS-tracked transit; arrival-photo confirmation.
- ♦ Day 8–10 — destruction queue runs; per-asset wipe-log or shred-batch-ID captured live.
- ♦ Day 10 — empty-cage / floor-space-release receipt sent to operator.
- ♦ Day 12 — Certificate of Destruction issued (PDF + PDF/A); per-asset table; DPDPA 2023 + TRM citations as applicable.
- ♦ Day 14 — INR settlement applied to your nominated bank account.
Why volume players reject partial-rack — and why we don't.
The publicly-listed prime-contractor ITAD vendors require whole-cage commitments because their economics rely on amortising labour across full-cage volumes. A partial-rack pull (6–24 servers from one cage) carries the same fixed labour cost per pickup — vehicle, two operators, witness, customs paperwork if cross-border — but only a fraction of the buyback proceeds. For them, that's a loss-making job they decline. For us, partial-rack is in the middle of our economic comfort zone: we built the operating model around 5–500 unit deals.
If you're retiring 6 servers and one storage array out of a multi-rack cage, we quote it the same day, sign SoW within a week, and execute single-day uplift. Total elapsed: 7–10 business days from asset list to settlement. Whole-cage exits at 100–500 servers run on a 14–28 day cycle with multi-day pickup windows.
Visual reference.
Read next
India data-centre decommissioning — frequently asked
Will you accept a partial-rack pull?
Yes — that's one of our explicit positioning differences from the volume players. A partial-rack pull (e.g. 6–24 servers from one cage) is welcome and we'll quote it the same day.
Can you sign an NDA before pickup?
Standard. We'll counter-sign your NDA or use our template; either way it's executed before any asset list is shared.
Do you carry transit insurance?
Yes. Cover details are shared as part of the onboarding pack. For high-value loads we can quote bespoke per-load cover.
Who decommissions partial racks at India data centres?
Maxicom India explicitly accepts partial-rack decommissioning at India data centre operator sites — Equinix SG1 through SG5, ST Telemedia Global Data Centres, Digital Realty / Digital India, Keppel DC, NTT GDC, Iron Mountain, Telin, Singtel-operated facilities. The volume players reject partial-rack jobs because their economics need whole-cage labour amortisation. Maxicom's economic model is built around 5–500 unit deals, partial-rack pulls in particular. Quote within 2 hours of asset list at +91 22 2222 2222.
How fast can you release floor space after a India DC decommissioning?
Standard floor-space release: 7 days from contract signature to photo-confirmed empty cage. Aggressive: 3–5 days for urgent regulatory deadlines with after-hours pickups. Photo-confirmed empty-cage / tile-clear receipt is issued within 24 hours of the final pickup and is structured to match the operator's typical re-lease workflow — most SG data-centre operators accept this format directly without follow-up paperwork.
What standards do you destroy data-centre storage to?
NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 1 (Clear / Purge / Destroy categories chosen per device), plus IEEE 2883-2022 storage sanitisation methods. SSDs and NVMe drives default to Purge via cryptographic erase. Magnetic HDDs default to Clear or Destroy depending on data classification. Tape and optical default to Destroy via particle-size shred. Per-job Certificate of Destruction lists the method per serial number with operator and witness sign-off.
Can you handle whole-cage exits as well?
Yes. Whole-cage decommissioning at 100–500+ servers runs on a 14–28 day cycle with multi-day pickup windows and phased destruction batches. Aggressive timelines are achievable for genuine urgency. The economics on whole-cage exits are particularly strong for the customer because the per-unit destruction-and-logistics overhead amortises down.
Who decommissions data centres in India?
Several vendor categories serve the India DC decom market. Publicly-listed prime contractors (Procurri SGX:BVQ, SK TES) handle whole-cage volume work with 6-week onboarding cycles and minimum contract sizes typically Rs100K+. Maxicom Global India explicitly serves the partial-rack and 5-500 unit range that the volume players reject — same-day quotes, partial-cage acceptance, 7-day end-to-end execution for small jobs. Local recyclers handle pure recycling without buyback. The right vendor depends on scope size, urgency, and evidence-pack requirements.
How much does data centre decommissioning cost in India?
Most engagements are net-positive — buyback proceeds offset the destruction-and-logistics cost. For a typical 18-server partial-rack pull at a India colocation site with original drives present, indicative gross buyback runs Rs15,000-50,000; destruction + logistics cost typically Rs2,000-6,000. Net INR settlement to the customer: positive. For destruction-only scopes without buyback (very old kit, severely-damaged kit, container-class bulk recycling), fee-based pricing runs Rs80-300 per server depending on volume, location, evidence-pack requirements.
How fast can Maxicom decommission a data centre cage in India?
Standard floor-space release: 7 days from contract signature to photo-confirmed empty cage. Aggressive timeline: 3-5 days for urgent regulatory deadlines with after-hours pickups and weekend destruction batches. Phase 1 (asset list + quote): same day. Phase 2 (site survey + SoW): days 2-3. Phase 3 (pickup window): days 4-5. Phase 4 (destruction): days 5-7. Phase 5 (Certificate + settlement): days 8-10. Whole-cage exits at 300+ servers run 14-28 days end-to-end.
Will Maxicom decommission a partial rack at Equinix India?
Yes — explicitly. Partial-rack pulls (6-24 servers from one cage) are a Maxicom specialism. Coordination with Equinix (or any major SG operator: ST Telemedia, Digital Realty, Keppel DC, NTT, Iron Mountain, Telin, Singtel, Yondr-class facilities) on cage access, vehicle parking, security clearance, and adjacency-tenant impact is part of standard onboarding. Most major operators have established processes for tenant-side decom; we run our work to fit those processes. Operator-side pull-and-replace work is also supported.
What's the typical data-centre refresh cycle in India?
India data-centre operators typically refresh tenant-side kit on 3-5 year cycles depending on asset class. Servers: 3-5 years. Storage arrays: 5-7 years. Networking: 5-10 years. Carrier-grade transport kit: 7-12 years. Operator-owned cooling and power infrastructure follows separate cycles. Across the SG DC cluster (estimated 70+ operational facilities), retiring kit volumes run 5,000-10,000 servers annually plus equivalent volumes of storage, networking, and component-level retirement.
Can Maxicom handle data-centre decommissioning across multiple SG operators in one project?
Yes. Multi-operator decom is structured as one project with one PM and one consolidated disposition report, but execution is coordinated separately with each operator's facilities team because each has different access procedures. Cross-operator sequencing is planned during onboarding — typically the larger sites first to free truck capacity for the smaller ones. Per-job Certificates of Destruction are issued per pickup batch, with the consolidated disposition report at end of project.
Do you charge separately for floor-space release receipts?
No. The floor-space release receipt (photo-confirmed empty cage / tile-clear, U-position-by-U-position tally, asset-list cross-reference) is included in every India data-centre decommissioning engagement at no additional cost. We treat it as part of the closing deliverable — the customer needs it to release floor space back to the operator's re-lease inventory, which directly affects their ongoing colocation costs.
How does Maxicom handle hyperscale data-centre kit retirement?
Hyperscale-class kit (whole rows, multi-cage, custom-OEM hyperscale builds) is within scope but typically structured as a longer-cycle engagement (28+ days end-to-end with multi-week phased pickup windows). Custom hyperscale builds with proprietary form-factors carry lower secondary-market residuals than standard enterprise OEM kit — sometimes destruction-only is the most economical disposition. Container-class re-export to India and SAARC refurb buyers is supported for kit that has secondary-market demand.