Transparent support of parallel disks. The library provides implementations of basic parallel disk
algorithms. STXXL
is the only external memory algorithm library supporting parallel disks.
The library is able to handle problems of very large size (tested to up to dozens of terabytes).
Improved utilization of computer resources.
STXXL implementations of external memory algorithms and data structures benefit from overlapping of I/O and computation.
Small constant factors in I/O volume. A unique library feature called "pipelining"
can save more than half the number of I/Os, by streaming data between algorithmic components,
instead of temporarily storing them on disk.
A development branch supports asynchronous execution of the algorithmic components,
enabling high-level task parallelism.
Shorter development times
due to well known STL-compatible
interfaces for external memory algorithms and data structures.
For internal computation, parallel algorithms from the MCSTL or the libstdc++ parallel mode are optionally utilized,
making the algorithms inherently benefit from multi-core parallelism.
« The core of STXXL is an implementation of the C++ standard template library STL for external memory (out-of-core) computations, i. e., STXXL implements containers and algorithms that can process huge volumes of data that only fit on disks. »