DDN EXAScaler is a family of Lustre appliances that runs a DDN fork of Lustre along with DDN management glue. The software is called EXA, and the hardware has names like AI400X3M.
Testimonials
Positive
This Reddit thread has generally positive reviews of DDN EXAScaler as of October 9, 2026:
DDN for us are fantastic, have used NetApp (it sucks). DDN have robust support on operations scaling and upgrading path. The CVE patches and all were handled with 0 down time.
We have a fairly large ddn installation, 19 storage clusters total and their support has actually been pretty good for my perspective. The problem is we actually run gpfs and it’s a royal pain in my ass. I wish we had gone with the exa scalar versus grid scalar solution.
Exascaler is fine, upgrades of exascaler and SFAOS have gotten better on the SFA line over the years, at this point I would not expect those to go sideways during maintenance. Infinia seems like a solution in need of a problem, not a good fit for us so no idea how well that works.
Negative
Lustre has some rough edges, especially around new features, but EXAScaler has its own challenges on top of that.
This one was from October 14, 2026:
