Case Study: GWDG (University of Göttingen & Max Planck Society computing center) achieves petascale, multi-tier storage and high-speed HPC access with Quantum Corporation's StorNext

GWDG Enables Breakthrough Research with StorNext at University of Göttingen and the Max Planck Society

GWDG, the shared computing center for the University of Göttingen and the Max Planck Society, supports more than 40,000 researchers across disciplines but faced rapidly accelerating data growth—nearly doubling each year—driven by large projects (e.g., 300 TB sequencing sets), library digitization and high‑performance computing needs. The center needed a single file system able to manage billions of files, provide multi‑OS access, support HPC workflows and meet long‑term retention and disaster‑recovery requirements with a small team.

GWDG deployed Quantum StorNext scale‑out multi‑tier storage (metadata and gateway appliances plus AEL6000 tape archives) to unify disk and tape—about 2.5 PB on disk and 4.5 PB on tape, roughly 7 PB total—under one namespace. The solution delivers high‑speed Ethernet access for HPC (StorNext DLC at ~3.2 GB/s), policy‑driven tiering and tape copies for recovery, heterogeneous client support and simplified administration, enabling scalable performance, strong data protection and continued growth without large staffing increases.

GWDG

Stefan Teusch

Deputy head of IT infrastructure