A massively parallel database management system includes an index store and a payload store including a set of storage systems of different temperatures. Both the stores each include a list of clusters. Each cluster includes a set of nodes with storage devices forming a group of segments. Nodes and clusters are connected over high speed links. The list of clusters within the payload store includes clusters of different temperatures. The payload store transitions data of a segment group from a higher temperature to a segment group in a lower temperature cluster in parallel. A node moves data of a segment in the higher temperature cluster to a corresponding node's segment in the lower temperature cluster. Once the data is written in the destination segment in the lower temperature cluster, the source segment is freed to store other data. The temperatures include blazing, hot, warm and cold.