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VAST

The VAST filesystem is the primary storage system for high performance needs within the PARCC ecosystem. Researchers will benefit from the performance of the VAST filesystem through faster access to datasets and software libraries.

Cluster of high performance storage servers at Penn

System Specifications

ComponentSpecification
Storage SystemVAST Data Universal Storage
Usable Capacity2.5 PB (usable, post-data reduction)
Measured Performance (Betty DGX SuperPod)272 GBps Read
62 GBps Write

System Design

ComponentSpecification
Storage SystemVAST Data Universal Storage
C-Nodes (Compute Nodes)15× VAST C-Nodes
C-Node FunctionStateless front-end protocol servers (NFS, SMB, S3, RDMA, etc.)
C-Node Interconnect5x with 200 Gbps GbE
10x with NDR200 InfiniBand (varies by configuration)
D-Nodes (Storage Nodes)10× VAST D-Nodes
D-Node FunctionNVMe-based storage enclosures with erasure coding and data reduction
Storage MediaQLC NVMe SSDs + SCM (Optane or equivalent) for metadata and cache
ScalabilityNear Infinite scalability