Total cost of ownership (TCO) now rivals performance as a top criterion for purchasing HPC storage systems, according to a new study published by Hyperion Research. “While performance still ranked first (57%), TCO tied with purchase price at 37% as the second most important consideration cited by users. This points to an important shift, as HPC storage buyers have historically given less credence to ongoing operating costs, particularly millions of dollars lost due to downtime. Almost half of the surveyed respondents experience storage system failures once a month or more, with some outages leading to downtimes that can last as long as a week. A single day of downtime costs can range from $100,000 to more than $1 million.”