What’s New in the World of Flash Storage? Keep Reading to Find Out
All-flash storage solutions have been on the market for a while, but innovation in flash storage solutions and SSD technologies don’t show signs of slowing down any time soon. Earlier in 2019, we saw the new high-performance connectivity technology NVMe take off, getting adopted into nearly all new all-flash storage arrays. Between these advances in flash storage and parallel advances in SSD technology (which have opened the door for increased adoption of flash storage in other devices), advances in flash storage technology are truly something to be excited about.
Keep reading to learn about the technologies we’ve found most exciting, including:
- Dell EMC Unity XC
- Pure Storage Flash Array//X with DirectFlash Fabric
- Net App AFF A320
- HPE Primera
1. Dell EMC Unity XT
At Dell Technologies World conference back in April 2019, the company unveiled an exciting new all-flash unified storage option in Dell EMC Unity XC. Unity XC was built from the ground up to support superior function in a multi-cloud world, doubling the performance of the Dell’s previous generation of flash storage arrays.
Dell EMC Unity XT all-flash arrays are NVME-ready, which means upgrading to the high-performance NVMe protocol will be a breeze. The Unity XT comes in 4 models with a variety of features, including:
- Raw capacities ranging from 2.4 to 16.0 petrabytes
- Unified block and cloud storage
- Multi-cloud capability
2. Pure Storage Flash Array//X with DirectFlash Fabric
Pure Storage is no stranger to the incredible potential of NVMe storage. Pure Storage designed NVMe support into previous iterations of their all-flash arrays, including Flash Array//M, and now they have proved the revolutionary advantages of NVMe over SAS and SATA SSDs with Flash Array//X and DirectFlash Fabric.
Released in February 2019, DirectFlash Fabric makes Pure Storage the first company that has implemented NVMe over Fabric with RDMM over Converged Ethernet (NVMe-oF RoCE), an exciting milestone for the company.
Features of Pure Storage’s latest all-flash array solution include:
- Performance improvements derived from remote direct memory access (RDMA)
- A reduction in latency of 50% over iSCSI
- An increase in performance by 20% over Fibre Channel
3. Net App AFF A320
Not released until May 2019, NetApp AFF A320 has proven worth the wait. The folks at SAN vendor NetApp pride themselves in their continued growth, citing their focus on providing compelling all-flash storage for SAN that is as smart as it is powerful as the driving force behind their success. NetApp is calling the AFF A320 the first midrange storage array to offer end-to-end NVMe performance.
Features of the 2U AFF A320 include:
- 100-Gbit Ethernet ports
- Support for NVMe SSDs
- NVMe supporting expansion shelf connected via NVMe-over-RoCE
- Scalability up to 35 petrabytes at maximum capacity
- Latency of a mere 100 microseconds
4. HPE Primera
In June, HPE unveiled its latest storage platform, which brings together the InfoSight-based artificial intelligence of HPE’s Nimble array family and the reliability of its 3Par array family, resulting in an innovative step forward for the company.
HPE Primera takes features:
- Support for configurations using a combination of SAS-based and NVMe-based flash storage
- Compatibility with storage-class memory such as Intel’s Optane technology
- All-active architecture
- Modularized operating system for increase flexibility in its data services
- Maximum capacity of 2TB
Vendors everywhere are releasing new all-flash arrays and SSDs, but some are more innovative and exciting than others. These are our 4 favorite options — did we miss yours? Let us know what new all-flash arrays and SSDs you’re most interested in. We’d love to hear from you!
