I/O Performance of the SX-Aurora TSUBASA

Abstract

File outputs or checkpoints for intermediate results frequently appear at appropriate time intervals in large-scale time-advancement numerical simulations where they are utilized for simulation post-processing and/or for restarting consecutive simulations. However, file input/output (I/O) for large-scale data often takes excessive time due to bandwidth limitations between processors and/or secondary storage systems like hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid state drives (SSDs). Accordingly, efforts are ongoing to reduce the time required for file I/O operations in order to speed up such simulations, which means it is necessary to acquire advanced I/O performance knowledge related to high-performance computing systems used.In this study, I/O performance with respect to the connection bandwidth between the vector host (VH) server and the vector engines (VEs) for three configurations of the SX-Aurora TSUB-ASA supercomputer system, specifically the A300–2, A300–4, and A300–8 configurations, were measured and evaluated. The accelerated I/O function, which is a distinctive feature of the SX-Aurora TSUBASA I/O system, was demonstrated to have excellent performance compared to its normal I/O function.