Cost estimates on this page were updated on June 1, 2026.

The ISAAC facilities document is available if you are working on a proposal (UT authentication required).

Overview

High Performance and Scientific Computing (HPSC) provides research computing resources and services to the University community. Through the Infrastructure for Scientific Applications and Advanced Computing (ISAAC), HPSC helps researchers identify right-sized computing solutions that support research planning, proposal development, and project execution. ISAAC includes environments for non-sensitive research (ISAAC Next Generation) and sensitive data (Secure Enclave).

Faculty and other university researchers may purchase compute nodes placed directly in the ISAAC cluster using sponsored research funds, startup funds, or other eligible sources. This is called a private condo investment.

Private condo investments give the investing researcher, project, and project members exclusive access to purchased compute resources while keeping those resources within the broader ISAAC research computing environment. Most infrastructure is provided at no additional charge, including storage, networking, operating system, and software.

Private condo resources also participate in the responsible node sharing program to make idle compute resources available to the broader campus community under short run-time limits.

How to get started

To invest in a private condo node, submit an HPSC Service Request. The HPSC Director, Manager, or System Architect will follow up to discuss your options.

Service Level Agreements

All private condo and storage investments require a Service Level Agreement (SLA) between OIT HPSC and the Principal Investigator (PI). The SLA defines the services provided, the responsibilities of each party, and the terms governing the use, management, and disposition of the equipment. It also outlines procedures for requesting services, resolving issues, and modifying or terminating the agreement.

When you are ready to move forward, OIT will prepare an SLA for review and signature. The agreement is signed by the OIT Associate Chief Information Officer for Service Level and Capacity Management and the PI, who must be a faculty member. The SLA covers:

• Equipment details, including configuration, cost, and service period
• Which cluster the equipment will be placed in
• Support and escalation procedures
• The funding source for the equipment purchase

OIT purchases the equipment under an OIT account and charges your funding source upon delivery. OIT then provides service at no additional charge for the life of the agreement. The service level agreement describes an equipment purchase. OIT HPSC does not sell computer services.

Federal research accounts: Direct equipment cost only. HPSC is not a cost center and facility charges do not apply. A vendor quote can be provided for proposal inclusion. Vendor quotes are time-limited and may need to be refreshed after an award is made.

Lead times for equipment delivery are typically two to six months. Once an order is placed, Dell provides an estimated ship date.

Node Lifecycle & Warranty

In most cases, compute node purchases must include a 5-year Dell warranty to ensure hardware support in the event of a hardware failure.

When the initial warranty expires, PIs may extend priority access for up to two additional years by purchasing a third-party warranty through OIT and amending their existing SLA. If the PI chooses not to purchase the extended warranty, the hardware will be reallocated to the institutional condo and made available to all ISAAC users.

After 7 years, nodes are subject to decommissioning at the discretion of HPSC.

Compute nodes

All prices below are estimates for a standard five-year service period. Final costs are determined by equipment configuration and confirmed in a vendor quote, typically from Dell. Modifications to configurations below are considered on a case-by-case basis.

Configuration	Server	Cores per node	Memory	Estimated price
Intel standard node	Dell PowerEdge R670	64	256 GB	$45,263.82
AMD standard node	Dell PowerEdge R6625	224	1 TB	$65,999.32
Large memory node	Dell PowerEdge R670	64	2 TB	$117,591.62
Large GPU node (4× NVIDIA H200)	Dell PowerEdge XE7740	64	1 TB	$299,883.92

Graphics processing unit (GPU) configurations can be complex. Contact HPSC to discuss GPU node options and funding eligibility. Submit an HPSC Service Request to get started.

Storage investments

All university projects receive 1 terabyte (TB) of high-performance parallel file system storage on ISAAC clusters at no additional cost. This storage uses the Lustre file system and is not purged. For more information on available file systems, see the file systems documentation.

Project principal investigators may request storage quota increases by submitting an HPSC Service Request.

• Requests up to 10 terabytes may be approved at no additional cost, depending on current file system availability.
• Requests exceeding 10 terabytes require a quote. The estimated cost is $100 per terabyte. This includes storage drives, redundancy that protects against two simultaneous drive failures, controllers, high-speed interconnect switches and cables, metadata storage, and Lustre file system software license and support.

Lustre project storage is not backed up. Researchers are responsible for their own backup strategy. Backup requests are addressed on a case-by-case basis and may involve access to UT-StorR long-term archival storage as part of a data management plan.

For virtual machine storage in the Secure Enclave, please submit an HPSC Service Request.

UT-StorR long-term archival storage

The UT-StorR system supports researchers and core facilities with large volumes of primary research data and results that are no longer actively used. It is also available to support data management plan requirements for federally funded projects, in coordination with UTK Libraries.

• Estimated cost: $100 per 18 terabyte tape cartridge (LTO-9 format)
• One petabyte of data stores on approximately 56 tapes at roughly $5,600 in tape costs
• UT-StorR hardware, software, and maintenance costs are funded through fiscal year 2026. No additional infrastructure costs need to be included in research budgets at this time. Cost recovery details will be published here when available.

Ready to invest?

HPSC staff includes computational scientists with advanced degrees who partner with faculty from research planning through publication. A private condo investment puts dedicated computing resources in your hands backed by that full team.

Submit an HPSC Service Request and the HPSC team will contact you to discuss your configuration, timeline, and funding options.