Why two exabytes are a BIG deal for HPC storage

[UliPlechschmidt]

Learn about what makes HPC storage different from enterprise storage and discover why HPE’s most recent addition to the overall storage portfolio is seeing fast market adoption.

Just two months after its launch as an HPE product, the Cray ClusterStor E1000 storage system has hit a major milestone: We have two exabyte capacity shipped or in signed backlog.

That might not sound like a big deal if you’re thinking in terms of enterprise storage. But for HPC storage, it’s a huge achievement as the market for specialized parallel HPC storage systems is much smaller than the enterprise storage market.

We often get asked by our enterprise IT customers, “What makes HPC storage different from enterprise storage?”

Here are the four characteristics that make HPC storage unique:

1. Serves data in file format (in contrast to block storage)
2. Scales linearly to very large capacities (10 to 1000s of petabytes) in a single namespace
3. Delivers very high throughput (10 to 1000s of gigabytes per second) to the compute nodes
4. Meets the very demanding price/performance requirements of the HPC market

The table below compares different enterprise storage categories with HPC storage using those four criteria.

According to Hyperion Research, HPC (on-premises) storage is forecasted to grow with 12.1% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2019 to 2024. That is much faster than then forecasted growth for (on-premises) enterprise storage as digital transformation results in increased HPC adoption by non-legacy HPC users across all verticals.

Given the rapid market adoption of the Cray ClusterStor E1000 storage system, we believe we’ve introduced an HPE storage system that meets the requirements of the fast-growing HPC storage market better than the alternatives.

If you want to learn more about the Cray ClusterStor E1000 storage system, please read the business paper or the technical paper. Also check out the Cray ClusterStor E1000 infographic to see why it’s the HPC storage system of choice of champions. 

As HPE President and CEO Antonio Neri recently observed, we are entering the Age of Insight—a new age that is defined by insights and discoveries that benefit all and elevate the greater well-being of humans across the planet. We look forward to that brighter future ahead. We are grateful that HPE can play a small part in helping our customers achieve it. 

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Uli Plechschmidt
Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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