SGI Ships New HPC Storage for Mixed-Use Systems

High-performance computer maker SGI on Sept. 22 introduced its newest storage system, SGI InfiniteStorage 16000, intended for high-octane environments that deal with mixed workloads.

Most often, HPC (high-performance computing) systems that handle computation for projects such as genome rendering, oil and gas geologic exploration, and weather prediction use dedicated servers and storage because the projects involve the flow of so much data.

SGI InfiniteStorage 16000 features dense, industrial-strength storage—it can manage up to 2.4 petabytes of content—and mixed I/O options, with 8G-bit Fibre Channel and 40G-bit InfiniBand.

Having mixed connectivity options enables users to run varying types of workloads on the system 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 1 million IOPS (input/output operations per second), depending upon the workload.

Other features, according to SGI, "include file and application hosting, an active/active redundant design, mirrored cache, support for multiple RAID levels and SSD, SAS and SATA [Serial ATA] disk drives, intelligent block striping, SATAssure data protection, power saving modes, and 8[G-bit] Fibre Channel and 40[G-bit] InfiniBand host-port options."

SGI has a sizable market presence in vertical markets that include government, science and other types of research systems.

"As technical computing platforms have continued a dramatic increase in density and performance, the I/O requirements are also becoming increasingly randomized 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.