Deep learning training involves iterating over a dataset many times (epochs). If a 32-node cluster pulls the same dataset from a central NFS storage server for every epoch, the network and storage fabric quickly become a bottleneck due to "Incast" traffic. By using the high-speed NVMe drives internal to a DGX system (configured inRAID-0for maximum performance, not redundancy), the system can implement a local cache. During the first epoch, data is pulled from the remote storage and simultaneously written to the local SSDs. For all subsequent epochs, the training framework reads the data directly from the local RAID-0 array. Thissignificantly reduces NFS trafficand network congestion, allowing the training to proceed at the full speed of the local NVMe storage ($25\text{ GB/s}+$ on modern DGX systems). Option C is incorrect because RAID-0 provides no redundancy; if a drive fails, the cache is lost, but since it is just a cache, the data still exists on the primary storage. Option B refers to GPUDirect Storage, which is a separate technology from local RAID-0 caching.
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