SGI Ships HPC Storage Arrays For Mixed Workloads

High-performance computer maker SGI has introduced the InfiniteStorage 16000, its latest storage system intended for high-octane environments that deal with mixed workloads. The company has a sizable market presence in vertical markets that include government, science and other types of research systems.

High-performance computing (HPC) systems handle computation for projects such as genome rendering, oil and gas geologic exploration, and weather prediction. Normally, dedicated servers and storage are used because these projects involve the flow of so much data.

Mixed Connectivity Options

SGI InfiniteStorage 16000 features dense, industrial-strength storage, the company said. The units can manage up to 2.4 petabytes (PB) of content and offer mixed input/output (I/O) options of 8Gbit Fibre Channel and 40Gbit InfiniBand. Mixed connectivity capabilities enable users to run varying types of workloads without the jobs impacting each other.

SGI claims that the new system delivers up to 10GB per second of read/write performance and up to one million input/output operations per second (IOPS), depending upon the workload.

Other features include file and application hosting, an active/active redundant design, mirrored cache, support for multiple RAID levels and solid-state drives (SSD), Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Serial ATA (SATA) disk drives, intelligent block striping, SATAssure data protection, and power saving modes.

“As technical computing platforms have continued [to show] a dramatic increase in density and performance, the I/O requirements are also becoming increasingly randomised between throughput and high IOPS,” said IDC worldwide storage systems analyst Natalya Yezhkova. “With SGI InfiniteStorage 16000, SGI is offering customers the ability to accommodate the high end of both in a very flexible platform.”

SGI InfiniteStorage 16000 systems are available now. The full feature set is described on the company’s site.