Abstract: Systems and methods that combine a silicon storage volume with a hard disk drive (HDD) volume in a storage system that uses in band hinting to select the volume for storing actual data and meta data based on the demands of high performance computing are described. A storage system with an application processor, a storage processor, a silicon storage volume including a plurality of SSDs and an HDD with a much larger number of HDDs efficiently handles write requests from a high performance computer. A high performance computing device prepares internal meta data and actual data write requests by specifying in the internal write requests whether the data is actual data or meta data using an existing field. The storage processor receives the internal write requests and manages storage of the meta data in the silicon storage volume and actual data in the HDD volume.

Abstract: Systems and methods that combine a silicon storage volume with a hard disk drive (HDD) volume in a storage system that uses in band hinting to select the volume for storing actual data and meta data based on the demands of high performance computing are described. A storage system with an application processor, a storage processor, a silicon storage volume including a plurality of SSDs and an HDD with a much larger number of HDDs efficiently handles write requests from a high performance computer. A high performance computing device prepares internal meta data and actual data write requests by specifying in the internal write requests whether the data is actual data or meta data using an existing field. The storage processor receives the internal write requests and manages storage of the meta data in the silicon storage volume and actual data in the HDD volume.