Case Study: NERSC achieves sixfold faster telescope data analysis and scalable, high-performance storage with NetApp EF‑Series and E‑Series

National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center Supporting an Endless Quest for Knowledge

The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory supports more than 6,000 scientists across disciplines but was struggling to keep up with rapidly growing datasets and diverse storage needs. Nightly file‑system metadata scans were taking too long, archival disk caches were becoming bottlenecks, and NERSC needed higher performance, reliability, and scalability to meet user demand and prepare for the transition to exascale computing.

NERSC deployed NetApp EF550 all‑flash arrays and NetApp E5560/E‑Series storage to accelerate metadata, file systems, and the archival cache. The upgrade cut file‑system scan time by 80% (fivefold faster backups), sped telescope data analysis sixfold, boosted archive throughput from 12GB/s to over 40GB/s, doubled genomic sequencing storage capacity, and expanded disk‑cache retention from days to months—significantly improving researcher productivity and readiness for exascale workloads.

National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)

Jason Hick

Group Leader, Storage Systems