So, I was talking with a friend. Using a storage unit as a workbench is something common. A climate-controlled storage unit with electricity can be had for quite cheap. Many people use storage units as a place to work on their cars, trucks, projects, and much more. I've even heard of garage bands practicing in their very own storage unit.
We got on the idea of making a storage unit into a mini datacenter. If one limits the number of servers that are in a normal climate-controlled room, chillers are not even necessary. There are a few questions that need to be answered before I will go out and rent any old storage unit.
Connectivity
The idea of a mini datacenter is completely pointless if you can't get an Internet connection to a storage unit. Since we're talking about a mini storage unit, we'll say that a regular fiber optic residential-class connection will do. If the fiber provider in your area won't provide Internet to a storage unit, you may have to look into a business-class connection. In Provo, the iProvo network is available to homes and businesses in Provo. They have some weird policies though. A single apartment can't get Internet service. The whole apartment complex has to get a business class connection, and the whole complex will share this connection. They may have a similar policy for something like a storage unit. The other options are cable and DSL, both of which are not really enough bandwidth to do more than load a few text files here and there.
Storage Unit Policy
Even if there is an ISP that can provide connectivity to the Internet, that doesn't mean that the storage unit management will be fine with the idea. It could potentially drive up the cooling costs in the summer, and increase their electricity bill year round. If you get a reasonable manager, they may be willing to raise your price a couple bucks per month.
Accessibility
Even if the management is OK, and you have a connection, that doesn't mean that you'll exactly have an admin on-site 24/7. In fact, you probably can't do that because most storage unit facilities close at night. If your server goes down, you won't be able to get there to fix it until morning.
What would this be useful for?
I'd say that this would be useful for some friends that want to have self-managed, local colocation. This would be cheaper than sending a server to a more traditional datacenter. Even if you only put five servers into the smallest storage unit, and could get one of the cheapest residential fiber plans for the Internet, you could likely be paying less per month than colocating a single server in a regular colocation datacenter. This type of setup is great for non-critical applications such as personal webservers, or offsite redundant personal backup.
Did I overlook anything? Am I wrong? Please let me know in the comments.