DDN Says Generative AI/ML Work Needs Balanced Read/Write IO Mix
Blocks&Files, Friday, July 28,2023
DDN says storage for generative AI and other AI work needs a balance of read and write speed, claiming its own storage provides the best balance because of its write speed superiority over competing systems.
The company supplies its Exascaler AI400X2 array with Magnum I/O GPUDirect certification for use with Nvidia's DGX SuperPod AI processing system. It uses 60TB QLC (4bits/cell) SSDs and has a compression facility to boost effective capacity. Some 48 AI400X2 arrays are in use with Nvidia's largest SuperPODs according to DDN, which said it shipped more AI storage in the first quarter of this year than in all of 2022.
SVP for Products at DDN, James Coomer, has written a blog, Exascale? Let's Talk, in which he says that an AI storage system has to support all stages of the AI workload cycle. 'That means ingest, preparation, deep learning, checkpointing, post-processing, etc, etc, and needs the full spectrum of IO patterns to be served well.'