WEKA and HPE recently announced record-breaking results across all five benchmark workloads in the SPECstorage Solution 2020 suite. The results were achieved using the WEKA Data Platform on the HPE Alletra Storage Server 4110, powered by Intel Xeon processors.

The results show the system’s ability to handle data-intensive workloads, including AI, genomics, software development, and video analytics, with high efficiency and low latency.

Details

WEKA and HPE secured the No. 1 ranking across all SPECstorage Solution 2020 workloads:

• AI_IMAGE: Measures storage performance for AI-driven image processing tasks.
• EDA_BLENDED: Simulates semiconductor design and verification workloads.
• GENOMICS: Assesses the storage infrastructure’s ability to handle genomic sequencing and analysis.
• SWBUILD: Evaluates storage performance for software compilation and development tasks.
• VDA: Tests storage performance for video analytics applications.

The benchmark results show the systems achieving about a 6.5x lower latency over prior records. The test configuration remained consistent across all five workloads, demonstrating the system’s ability to maintain peak performance without workload-specific tuning.

Competitive Performance

WEKA has consistently led in high-performance storage benchmarks, frequently surpassing previous record holders across multiple SPECstorage® workloads:

• AI_IMAGE: The previous record of 2,400 AI jobs was held by WEKA on AWS Cloud, submitted on March 13, 2024. WEKA’s latest performance showed a 2.1x improvement in scalability and over 2x higher throughput.
• EDA_BLENDED: On May 4, 2023, NetApp held the previous record with 8,100 job sets. WEKA and HPE surpassed this with 17,000 job sets, achieving 2.1x better scalability, 2.45x faster throughput, and 6.5x lower latency.
• GENOMICS: WEKA set the last record on AWS Cloud in March 2024 with 2,200 jobs. WEKA and HPE improved this to 5,600 jobs, demonstrating 2.5x better scalability and throughput.
• SWBUILD: On November 16, 2023, NetApp set the prior record with 6,120 builds. WEKA and HPE achieved 6,200 builds with 1.8x faster response times and higher throughput.
• VDA (Video Analytics): In March 2024, WEKA, running on AWS Cloud, held the previous record of 12,000 streams. WEKA and HPE surpassed this with 14,400 streams, delivering 1.2x better scalability, 1.2x higher throughput, and over 2.4x lower latency.

Tested Configuration

The performance improvements stem from a combination of hardware and software optimizations. The benchmarked system consisted of:

• 12 x HPE Alletra Storage Server 4110 nodes
  • 1U form factor per node
  • 16 x 3.84TB PCIe Gen5 NVMe E3.S SSDs
  • 2 x 5th Gen Intel Xeon Gold 6548N Processors
  • 512GB DDR5 memory at 5,600 MT/s
  • 2 x NVIDIA CX-7 400Gb 1-port NDR adapters

The nodes are interconnected via 64-port HPE NVIDIA NDR switches supporting 400Gb/s throughput, while an HPE ProLiant DL385 Gen11 server was used for load generation.

HPE Alletra Storage Server 4110

TheHPE Alletra Storage Server 4110 is a high-density, performance-optimized storage solution engineered for modern data workloads. HPE markets the system as delivering a balance of compute, memory, and storage capabilities to support AI, machine learning, and high-performance computing applications.

Key attributes of the Alletra Storage Server 4110 include:

• Storage Performance: PCIe Gen5 NVMe for data throughput, reducing storage latency and improving responsiveness for I/O-intensive applications.
• Compute Power: Dual 5th Gen Intel Xeon processors. While the tested configuration was equipped with a mid-range Xeon Gold 6548N processor, HPE provides a range of CPU options from standard Xeons to cache-heavy Xeon Platinum CPUs.
• Memory Architecture: 512GB of DDR5 memory at 5,200 MT/s.
• Networking: NVIDIA CX-7 400Gb NDR InfiniBand adapters.
• Security and Management: HPE Alletra integrates comprehensive security features for a zero-trust approach to security.

Analysis

The results, the first in 2025 from any vendor, show that the combination of WEKA and HPE as leaders in high-performance storage solutions. By outperforming previous SPECstorage benchmarks, they strengthen their appeal in AI, HPC, and enterprise IT environments that require low-latency, high-throughput storage.

The SPECstorage results provide enterprises with empirical data to evaluate storage options, particularly for AI-driven and data-intensive workloads. WEKA and HPE’s dominance in this benchmark shows them as primary contenders in the HPC and AI data infrastructure market.

WEKA consistently performs well on these benchmarks, but it was nice to see the results reflect WEKA’s software running on HPE’s Alletra platform (WEKAs submissions are typically run on public cloud infrastructure).

These results show what a modern data infrastructure can deliver, combining the best of scalable software-defined storage, a storage platform based on the latest 5th generation Xeon processor, and using 400Gb/s InfiniBand – all reflecting the current state-of-the-art for performance computing.

The results show that WEKA, especially WEKA on HPE Alletra, can deliver high-performance storage at scale. Beyond setting records, this reinforces both WEKA and HPE’s ability to provide scalable, high-performance storage for data-intensive applications. It’s a nice showing for both companies.