NetApp launches Novus storage architecture for large GPU environments

NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) announced a new storage architecture called NetApp Novus, designed for AI infrastructure providers operating large GPU environments. According to a company press release, the system is architected for up to 100 terabytes per second of aggregate throughput and is built to support a zettabyte-scale file system.

The product targets neoclouds and GPU-as-a-service providers, which NetApp says face storage bottlenecks that can reduce GPU utilization to below 30% under traditional storage architectures. Novus separates metadata from the data path, allowing performance, capacity, and concurrency to scale independently under a single namespace using industry-standard NFS.

The initial release combines NetApp Novus Data Director, the metadata software, running on Supermicro infrastructure, with NetApp ONTAP data services delivered through AFF A90 systems. The product is available to order.

Analyst firm Omdia said it audited the system and observed near-linear performance scaling as ONTAP clusters were added. "Based on the rigorous testing we observed, our modeling projects that NetApp Novus disaggregated metadata and data architecture can scale up and out to 100TBps sequential read throughput with dozens of exabytes of effective capacity, and beyond," said Tony Palmer, Chief Analyst with Omdia.

Syam Nair, Chief Product Officer at NetApp, said in a statement: "AI factories struggle and GPU economics collapse when data can't keep up. HPC-era storage alone cannot serve AI Factory scale — the industry needs a true architecture built for it from the ground up."

Cisco also commented on the announcement. "As AI pushes infrastructure to new levels of scale and speed, the real differentiation isn't the GPU — it's the data and how customers use it," said Jeremy Foster, Senior Vice President and General Manager at Cisco Compute.

NetApp noted that statements about unreleased offerings and future plans are subject to change and should not be relied upon for purchasing decisions.

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