By Molly Presley, Hammerspace
[SPONSORED GUEST ARTICLE] In tech, you’re either forging new paths or stuck in traffic. Tier 0 doesn’t just clear the road — it builds the autobahn. It obliterates inefficiencies, crushes bottlenecks, and unleashes the true power of GPUs. The MLPerf1.0 benchmark has made one thing clear: Tier 0 isn’t incremental improvement—it’s a high-speed revolution.
I was at SC24 in Atlanta, talking with the sharpest minds from universities, the biggest AI players, and hyperscalers running the largest environments on the planet. The verdict? Tier 0 is the autobahn for data and savings. The response was nothing short of electric—because Tier 0 isn’t just about speed and efficiency; it’s about turning wasted resources into financial wins.
Here’s why Tier 0 matters, and why its benchmark results are nothing short of game changing.
1. Virtually Zero CPU Overhead
Think about this: GPU servers are notorious for drowning in storage inefficiencies. Tier 0 flips the script. Using just the Linux kernel, it slashes processor utilization for storage services to almost zero. Imagine running massive workloads without taxing your compute resources. That’s pure efficiency.
This isn’t theoretical—it’s what customers are seeing in production right now, and what our benchmarks confirmed in the lab. With Tier 0, servers do what they’re meant to do: crunch numbers and run AI models, not waste cycles on storage.
2. A Single Tier 0 Client Outperforms Entire Lustre Configurations
Here’s the jaw-dropper: a single Tier 0 client—just one standard Linux server—supports 10% more H100 GPUs than an 18-client Lustre configuration with 4 OSSs and 8 OSTs. …WOW…
Now, scale that up. If we expand Tier 0 to the same scale as that 18-client Lustre setup, you’d support 20X the H100 GPUs. That’s not incremental improvement—it’s unparalleled acceleration.
And the kicker? No extra hardware. Tier 0 taps into the storage you already have sitting in your GPU servers. This isn’t about buying more—it’s about unlocking what you’ve already paid for. Organizations have already invested in NVMe drives inside their GPU servers, but those drives are massively underutilized. Tier 0 flips the script, turning that poorly used capacity into a performance powerhouse.
This isn’t just smart—it’s game-changing.
3. Bye-Bye, Network Constraints
Networks are the ball-and-chain of GPU computing in bandwidth intensive workloads. Tier 0 breaks the chain by eliminating network dependency entirely. Traditional setups choked on 2x100GbE interfaces, but Tier 0 doesn’t need them. Local NVMe storage lets GPUs run at full tilt, without waiting for data to crawl through network pipes.
4. Linear Scalability—The Holy Grail of AI and HPC
What’s better than scaling? Scaling predictably. Tier 0 gives you linear performance scaling. Double your GPUs? Double your throughput. Simple math, enabled by next-gen architecture.
In practical terms, Tier 0 slashes checkpointing durations from minutes to seconds. That’s huge. Every second saved on checkpointing is another second GPUs can spend training models or running simulations.
5. Real Dollars and Real Sense
This isn’t just about performance—it’s about making smarter investments. Tier 0’s architecture saves on both CapEx and OpEx by:
- Using the storage you already own. No new infrastructure, no massive network upgrades, no added complexity. If your GPU servers have NVMe storage, Tier 0 unlocks its full potential.
- Reducing the need for high-performance external storage. By maximizing GPU-local storage, organizations save on expensive hardware, networking, power, and cooling.
- Accelerating job completion. Faster performance means fewer GPUs needed to hit deadlines, stretching every dollar spent on compute.
And while Tier 0 is changing the game, it integrates into your Tier 1 and long term retention external tier storage seamlessly. Hammerspace unifies all the tiers into a single, unified namespace and global file system.
SC24 wasn’t just a conference—it was the proving ground. The best in AI, HPC, and hyperscaling saw Tier 0 and immediately got it. This is the future of GPU storage designs, and everyone there knew they were seeing something historic.
Tier 0 isn’t just a technical breakthrough; it’s a financial and operational game-changer. It redefines what’s possible in AI and HPC, turning bottlenecks into fast lanes and wasted resources into untapped potential.
The results speak for themselves, but don’t take my word for it. Check out the technical brief and see how Tier 0 is changing the game—forever.
Ready to turn wasted capacity into game-changing performance?
