The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator and collider located at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland is the world’s largest and most powerful high-energy particle accelerator. The primary purpose of the LHC is to conduct physics experiments, collect and analyze data from these experiments in order to help answer fundamental questions of physics. The nature of the research conducted at the LHC requires that the data storage systems used must meet highly demanding criteria. Hundreds of petabytes of data are collected and stored for analysis. Furthermore, the flow of data into the storage systems can be extremely high. Obviously data storage is one of many crucial elements that designers consider when planning the complex systems of CERN. So reliability and performance are extremely important for every component.
Engineers at CERN were quite happy with the performance and reliability of the VTrak J5800 JBOD enclosures which had been installed and running smoothly and reliably for years at the facility. So when PROMISE introduced the VTrak J5960 engineered for high performance, large capacity and greatly reduced power consumption, the CERN team was immediately interested.
The amount of energy required to conduct the experiments is enormous, therefore the need to conserve energy wherever possible is a priority. This is a strong selling point for the VTrak J5960. The Toshiba testing facility has confirmed energy savings in excess of 20% for the VTrak J5960. With numerous enclosures over time, this is an enormous difference.
The people at CERN were so happy with PROMISE and Toshiba that they agreed to allow a film crew in to record some footage of the PROMISE/Toshiba systems being used, along with a testimonial from a spokesman. You can watch that video here.