Pure Storage recently announced the release of FlashArray//m, the company’s new flagship all-flash storage array.
In conjunction with Pure1, a new cloud-based management and support offering, and Evergreen Storage, a new model for storage procurement and upgrades, FlashArray//m provides storage that is dramatically simple and more efficient, and eliminates forklift upgrades and data migration burden from storage ownership. Now, storage can contribute meaningfully to transforming customers’ business and IT infrastructure for higher growth and profitability.
Commenting on the release, James Petter, VP EMEA at Pure Storage says, “Today, even when a customer buys the latest storage array, newer replacement equipment lies just around the corner, ready to render the current deployment obsolete. To refresh their technology, customers endure upgrade costs and hours of decreased performance or service interruptions during their ‘forklift upgrades’.
The Evergreen Storage model changes all this completely. Now customers can invest in a storage platform that can add value to their businesses for a decade or more, and make individual component, non-disruptive upgrades to capacity and/or performance when required by the business. This flat, predictable, SaaS-like procurement model further lowers the bar for customers to bring all-flash storage into their data centres, unlocking both business and IT transformation.”
FlashArray//m, the fourth generation of Pure Storage’s flagship FlashArray product, delivers complete end-to-end integrated hardware and software innovation, a first for an all-flash array. FlashArray//m features a modular upgradable architecture, and can deliver a 50% increase in performance, 2.6x improvement in density, and 2.4x improvement in power efficiency-per-terabyte over previous FlashArray generations.
FlashArray//m fully integrates two high-performance Intel Haswell controllers running the Purity Operating Environment 4.5, new NV-RAM cache modules, and new dual-drive flash modules inside the three rack unit (RU) chassis. This density results in the consolidation of racks of legacy disk storage, driving a 5-10x power, space, and efficiency improvement.
FlashArray//m offers three controller options to meet a variety of performance and capacity needs:
- //m20 controllers – up to 120+ TBs usable (5-40 TBs raw storage) and 150,000 32K input/output operations per second (IOPS),
- //m50 controllers – up to 250+ TBs usable (30-88 TBs raw storage) and 220,000 32K IOPS,
- //m70 controllers – up to 400+ TBs usable (44-136 TBs raw storage) and 300,000 32K IOPS.
Consistent with its Evergreen Storage model, Pure Storage crafted the new FlashArray//m to deliver density, performance and simplicity without sacrificing scalability and upgradability. The FlashArray//m delivers:
- Mini Size: Capable of consolidating racks of spinning disk into 3U, Pure Storage has shrunk storage arrays that were once the size of multiple refrigerators down to the size of a microwave, cutting power consumption down to one kilowatt (kW) – equal to reducing the power usage of ten residential homes down to one toaster oven. New dual-drive flash modules coupled with Purity’s FlashReduce data reduction software delivers up to 40TBs/U density, and enable mixing/matching with modules of higher density over time.
- Modular Scale: With the new modular, customisable, and upgradable hardware design, customers can scale from accelerating a single application of 15 TB up to nearly ½ petabyte (PB) usable storage, capable of running an entire rack, business, or cloud. The modular design permits Pure Storage to deliver both processor and flash upgrades approximately every nine- to 12 months and enables customers to adopt these advances within their existing FlashArrays without data migration, downtime or performance impact.
- Mighty Performance: The FlashArray//m delivers up to 300,000 32K IOPS at less than one millisecond average latency – 10 times faster than traditional disk-based storage – and up to nine gigabytes per second (GB/s) bandwidth. Coupled with Purity’s FlashProtect software, the FlashArray//m maintains its sub-millisecond performance through software and hardware upgrades.
- Meaningful Simplicity: With appliance-like installation, the FlashArray//m is only one unit to rack and connects with only six cables. All software is included in the base price, meaning no additional charge for high availability, snapshots, replication, encryption, or management software. The FlashArray//m stays simple and evergreen over time, with non-disruptive upgrades to performance and capacity.
Pure Storage’s new Evergreen Storage model eliminates the three- to five-year rip-and-replace storage lifecycle that has impaired IT efficiency for decades. With this new model, customers deploy storage once and upgrade it in-place for generations. Evergreen Storage is delivered by combining FlashArray’s modular, stateless and software-defined architecture with Forever Flash, the company’s standard maintenance program.
Forever Flash delivers predictable ongoing “flat and fair” pricing, and includes software updates as well as periodic hardware upgrades, keeping the FlashArray modern over time. Pure Storage is also announcing Upgrade Flex Bundles, which enable customers who are expanding their capacity to upgrade their FlashArray controller hardware, if desired, and receive trade-in value for their existing controller investment. Evergreen Storage enables enterprises to invest in a storage infrastructure that helps their business be faster, smarter and more innovative – both today and tomorrow.
