Seagate SSDs Pulsar.2 Powers Nor-Tech

Seagate Technology LLC announced its Pulsa.2 SSDs are powering sophisticated computing systems for Northern Computer Technologies (Nor-Tech), in HPC.

Thanks to the speed and reliability of Pulsar SSDs, Nor-Tech has been able to produce highly mobile Portable Clusters that are enabling the use of HPC solutions for mobile applications and in challenging outdoor environments.

Nor-Tech, an Intel and Supermicro Authorized Integrator and Microsoft Direct OEM, specializes in high performance servers and clusters. The company’s Portable Clusters provide customizable computing solutions for financial services, oil & gas, life sciences, higher education, visual effects and any other industry running compute-intensive applications. Featuring a ruggedized chassis, software engineering, and the Lustre distributed file system, Portable Clusters are mobile and lightweight, allowing high-performance computing to escape the server room.

Nor-Tech is using the Pulsar.2 enterprise SSD in its Lustre Cluster metadata server, which directs large amounts of data running in parallel to potentially thousands of clients. For example, it recently incorporated Seagate SSDs in its VoyStor Storage Server, which is being used by the University of Minnesota for hydropower and wind energy research. The parallel computing storage solution includes 2,300 compute cores to support 2,300 clients over a 40GB/s IB connection.

"Seagate Pulsar.2 drives enable us to target new markets and revenue opportunities because we can design systems for very different locations and environments," said Dom Daninger, VP of Engineering at Nor-Tech. "We know we can rely on Seagate because of its long-standing reputation, its unparalleled expertise in enterprise-level storage, and its highly reliable firmware. We also have an excellent engineering and support relationship with Seagate, which is essential to a long-term integration partnership."

"We believe that our SSD technology is a big part of creating new, powerful ways to support mission critical applications in HPC," said Bob Griswold, SVP of Seagate Product Line Management. "Seagate has a heritage in delivering high performance, reliable storage solutions and we’re proud to team with Nor-Tech to help its customers advance computing possibilities."

The newest generation Pulsar.2 drive offers:

• Enterprise-class endurance (capable of up to 10 full drive writes per day)
• Protection against unintended data change or loss
• Capacities up to 800GB
• A Self-Encrypting Drive option (800GB, SAS only)