Enterprise Storage:
Guide to Flash Storage
Flash storage is a high
performing player in
today’s demanding storage
environments. Here’s a survey
of the flash marketplace, a view
of flash’s future, deployment
tips, and an insider’s guide to
choosing the best system.
Flash. The word alone promises a
burst of speed, and flash storage
certainly delivers on this promise.
Until recently, flash was seen as
ENTERPRISE STORAGE: Guide to Flash Storage © 2018 QuinStreet, Inc. • 1 •
the “expensive high end” option,
and indeed flash system are still
pricey by comparison to their last
generation colleagues, hard disk
drives. But as the price of flash
has fallen – and the demands
on storage system have risen
– flash adoption has increased
significantly.
To provide practical insight into
the world of flash, Enterprise
Storage Forum has produced this
guide to offer guidance.
CONTENTS
Overview of the Flash Market ................ 2
Insights on Three Trends Shaping the
Future of Flash.............................................. 3
Deployment Tips to Guide Flash
Implementation........................................... 4
Flash Buying Guide..................................... 5
Essential Questions To Ask When
Selecting Flash Arrays................................ 8
Roundup of All Flash Array Systems...10
 ENTERPRISE STORAGE: Guide to Flash Storage 2

Flash Market: Declining Prices

Drive Adoption
The enterprise data storage market
is growing rapidly, and at the
center of this is flash storage. Flash
is becoming increasingly integral
to helping businesses handle an IT
landscape facing the challenges of
next-generation workloads.

Typically packaged into solid-state

drives (SSDs), flash started out
as a high-performance cure for
the performance ills that affected
disk-based storage arrays and
storage subsystems in servers. As
an added bonus, they consume
less electricity than hard disk drives
(HDDs), helping data centers and
organizations that are heavily reliant
on large storage infrastructures to
keep power consumption in check.
The market has come a long way
since vendors started shipping
storage systems in 2011 that used
flash as a persistent data store rather
than just an application-boosting
caching layer.
Although they remain pricey
compared to HDD-based systems
on a per-gigabyte basis, SATA and
SAS SSD-packed arrays have drifted
much closer to affordability for a
growing number of businesses.
In today’s world, businesses can’t
afford to allow their storage
networks to hinder their ability
to provide responsive application
experiences.
How Flash Drives
Today’s Storage Market
In understanding the rise of flash,
there are other factors to consider
beyond the actual price tag.
“As the prices have come down on
flash, the total cost of ownership
got to the point where it was a no-
brainer to buy an all-flash array,” Eric
Burgener, research vice president
for Storage at IDC, told Enterprise
Storage Forum.
Indeed, the total cost of ownership
(TCO) of flash storage often invites
open purse strings, which is
evident in how the flash-enabled
segments of the storage market are
performing.
According to IDC’s latest report on
the enterprise storage market, the
all-flash array category generated
$2.1 billion in sales during the first
quarter of 2018. That’s a year-over-
year increase of nearly 55 percent,
outpacing the overall enterprise
storage market (more on that
shortly).
Hybrid flash arrays, which combine
SSDs and HDDs to provide a suitable
balance between performance
and sheer storage capacity, fared
well, too. The segment racked up
$2.5 billion in revenue, an annual
increase of nearly 24 percent.
For context, the entire enterprise
storage market was up 34.4 percent,
year-over-year in the first quarter of
2018, hitting $13 billion. For those
keeping count, the all-flash and
hybrid flash segments add up to
$4.6 billion, more than a third of the
overall market.
“Demand for public cloud
resources and a global
enterprise infrastructure refresh
were two important drivers
of new enterprise storage
investments around the world,”
stated Burgener’s colleague,
Eric Sheppard, research vice
president of Server and Storage
Infrastructure at IDC. “Solutions
most commonly sought after in
today’s enterprise storage systems
are those that help drive new
levels of datacenter efficiency,
operational simplicity, and
comprehensive support for next
generation workloads.”
Flash, to be sure, helps drive those
new levels in ways that businesses
are eager to invest in.

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The Future Of Flash Storage:
Three Major Trends
What will the all-flash storage market
look like in the next few years?
Expect some major changes that
will help push flash further into the
enterprise mainstream.
1. NVMe Ascendant
Non-Volative Memory Exprese
(NVMe) is a game changer,
prompting storage vendors to shake
up their product lines with alarming
speed. Compared to traditional
storage architectures, NVMe is
catching on like wildfire. By the
second quarter of 2018, most major
enterprise storage vendors have
announced all-NVMe versions of
their arrays.
The reason NVMe is driving such
keen interest is the protocol’s
latency-lowering capabilities,
enabling SSDs to reach their full
potential. NVME is much better
suited to flash than SCSI was. There
are several performance vectors
that NVMe addresses, including
bandwidth, IOPs, and latency.
For example, the maximum IOPs
possible for Serial ATA was 200,000,
whereas NVMe devices have already
been demonstrated to exceed
1,000,000 IOPs, according to NVM
NVMe is catching
on like wildfire.
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FLASH
STORAGE
Express, the industry group charged
with advancing the technology.
With performance claims like those,
it’s no wonder that both all-flash
array makers and their performance-
conscious business customers
are aggressively pursuing the
technology. Looking ahead, NVMe
is going to be required to support
the next leap in storage, namely
storage-class memory products like
3D XPoint from Intel and Micron.
2. Self-Managed Data Storage
Many all-flash arrays are based on
traditional storage architectures
and have inherited most of their
shortcomings, mainly a high-
maintenance approach to storage
administration. The latest breed
of flash systems adopt a software-
defined storage (SDS) approach
to storage management and are
being built under the assumption
that they’re not having specialized
storage admin handle all the issues.
Rather, an IT generalist can log
into a console, input the desired
performance characteristics they
3
want for their storage workloads
– and the array takes care of the
rest, automating many of the
configuration and tuning tasks
that once used to take up a storage
administrator’s day. There are now
more all-flash arrays introduced that
are built on that idea.
3. Developing Standards: Flash-
Filled 2U24 Storage Arrays
The combination of Flash and
software defined storage is helping
to giving rise to a developing
standard in enterprise storage
arrays, 2U24. Buoyed by storage
startups that are popularizing the
SAN building block, 2U24 systems
incorporate a dual-controller
architecture and up to 24 2.5-inch
SSDs into a 2U form-factor.
This approach has enabled
innovators in the space to contract
with ODMs like Foxconn, place
their software on the system and
compete against proprietary
designs. Massachusetts-based
Kaminario is known for its 2U24 all-
flash systems. NetApp, too, is moving
to 2U24 in its latest system.

Flash Deployment Tips:
6 Best Practices
Sure, flash is fast in performance,
but that doesn’t mean it’s fast to
implement. Here are tips to guide
the process.
1
Be Prepared to Shift
Storage Staff
ROI calculations are never simple.
But those attempting to justify a
hefty investment in flash should
also factor staff time savings as
part of the equation. Do a quick
study of storage administrator time
spent on various storage tasks and
how flash saves many by avoiding
troubleshooting complaints about
slow response.
Performance problems attract (and
distract) the most senior storage
professionals because performance
problems are always urgent and
require an in-depth understanding
of complex technology interactions
across servers, storage, networks,
applications and even hypervisors.
In a time of shrinking IT budgets
and staffs, think of justifying flash
purchases based on the most
recent Gartner data that shows
you can reclaim half of your team
by deploying flash with a 5-month
payback.
2
Think ‘Fundamental Change’
Flash is a strategic change in
how storage can be provisioned
to support applications. Therefore,
businesses should look for storage
architectures that allow them to
scale the capacity and performance
resources separately, provision
them in whatever ratio is required,
and protect those workloads
at scale no matter how many
workloads are being supported.
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The goal isn’t just to use flash and
make things faster, it’s to use the
consistency of flash in order to
change the fundamental model
of how storage is used in the data
center.
3
Look for Latency
Improvements
Where the storage requirements
of databases are likely to be
challenged is not throughput,
that is, IOPS. The real challenge
tends to be response times – the
all important latency. For instance,
how long does it take to get a
response to a request when you’ve
completed a form on the website?
Reducing latency – a strong point
of flash – should lower that time.
Indeed a shift from HDD to flash
will offer an improvement to be
sure. But storage admins should
ask themselves, but what kind of
improvement are you looking at
getting?”
Some AFA implementations may
provide 10 milliseconds, while
others may be able to take that
down to 1 millisecond of latency, or
even lower. That has a huge impact
to users.
4
Scale up or scale out?
As storage pros know, scale
up is where you start out small with
a single AFA and add capacity to
that unit; scale out is where you
cluster multiple boxes together to
increase capacity and performance.
Some AFAs are better at scaling up.
Others are more suited to scaling
out, and a few – the really high end
ones – are good at both. Each has
4
advantages and disadvantages
related to the environment and
workloads. This factor should be
given due consideration during
implementation strategy sessions.
5
Disaster Recovery
and Flash Mirroring
Proper set up for disaster recovery
(DR) is a matter of business life and
death. It’s all very well to add an
AFA or two, but how are you going
to protect that data? Some AFAs
make it easy to put storage at two
different locations and have the
AFAs synchronously mirror to each
other.
This implementation strategy of
synchronously mirroring would
provide resiliency should any point
in the system fail.
6
Flash is part of a
larger system
A flash system is not necessarily the
be-all and end-all of performance.
While flash undeniably provides an
incredible boost to performance,
storage pros know that of all
potential application slowdowns
— the kind most often attributed
to storage — are often not actually
caused by the storage system.
So when implementing an all
flash array, understand that it’s
performance isn’t a cure-all.
There are other factors that affect
application performance such as
hosts, networking, interoperability
and failure to follow best practices
when addressing issues. In
short, implement flash with the
knowledge that your entire system
must be optimized, not merely your
new blazing fast flash system.

Flash Buying Guide: Selecting the
Best Flash AFA for Your Business
Before you buy enterprise flash
storage, realize two key facts:
First, there is a lot of energy
around buying more flash for the
corporate data center. Second, as
of 2018 only 10% of corporate data
centers own an all-flash array.
This matters because it is
important not to get ahead of
ourselves in the buying decision.
True, flash in hybrid arrays has a
higher install rate, flash is making
inroads into the data center, and
flash adoption rates are rising. At
the same time, this is nowhere
near a done deal for all-flash data
centers.
There is a huge installed user
base of good old-fashioned hard
drives, and even retro tape for that
matter. This is not a simple matter
of waiting until the old media
lifecycles run out and refreshing
with flash. Flash development is
proceeding very quickly, but for
now at least there are cheaper and
better media for storing nearline
and long-term data. Despite the
flash hype, nothing beats cheap
high-capacity disk or tape for cold
storage.
Although flash may work well for
active archives (truly active, not
As of 2018 only 10% of corporate
data centers own an all-flash array.
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ENTERPRISE STORAGE: Guide to Flash Storage
just name only) its 3 to 5-year
durability window does not make
it a trustworthy media for storing
long-term data.
Why Companies Buy
Flash
A key driver of flash investment
– and where you will see
development and purchases
rising rapidly – is flash for
high production performance.
This includes mission-critical
transactional databases, analytics
and high-performance computing
workloads, virtual desktop
infrastructure (VDI) and streaming
assets for the broadcasting and
medical industries.
So, when we discuss enterprise
flash storage we are not talking
about the mythical Phoenix of the
all-flash data center. We are talking
about three things:
1. All-flash arrays for high
performance data processing
on the shared storage side.
These arrays tier from highest
performance flash to higher
capacity SSDs in the same array.
Over time IT should tier the data
off of the AFA to less expensive
media.
5
When they were first introduced
a few years ago, FA products
tended to be retrofitted hybrid
arrays or purpose-built models
that lacked the mature data
intelligence tools of HDD and
hybrid arrays. Over the years AFAs
have significantly improved their
native data intelligence including
compression and dedupe, native
encryption, thin provisioning, and
sophisticated management tools.
2. A subset of AFAs are called
flash appliances. They are all-
flash storage systems, but unlike
mainstream AFAs they have
only basic storage intelligence.
For example, most data center
AFAs come with native dedupe,
compression, snapshots,
replication thin provisioning, and
more.
The flash appliance only has basic
storage management features
in order to consume a minimal
amount of processor overhead.
They are strictly for boosting
performance with high IOPs, low
latency and fast throughput. This
allows data center admins to gain
very fast performance at a lower
cost, since the array is engineered
for speed and users do not pay for
sophisticated management on top
of fast flash.
3. Server-side flash for the
highest possible performance
and latency requirements.
Server-side flash is essentially
direct attached storage on steroids.
It is not the optimal choice for
many types of data, but it is
for extremely high-performing
applications.

Server-based PCIe Cards
Accelerates single application server.
EXAMPLE: Oracle Financials database
Persistent storage or cache for high
performance server application.
Single-digit TB capacity lower than AFA
or flash appliance.
Data protection requires mirroring
datasets, which significantly raises prices. features
Choosing Among Types
of Enterprise Flash
Different Types of Enterprise
Flash
With those three factors in mind,
let’s talk about common types of
flash, AFAs and server-side flash.
We’ll also look at use case for each.
NAND Flash
NAND is nonvolatile storage that
does not require power to retain
data. The most widely used type
of flash in the world, it is installed
in both in consumer devices and
enterprise SSDs. NAND comes
in many different flavors and
development is largely driven by
increasing density. Single level cell
(SLC) was the start and referred to
one bit per cell. Greater density
followed with multi-level cell and
three-level cell architecture.
Today, developments include 3D
Vertical NAND, or V-NAND flash
chips. By stacking cells in vertical
layers, the NAND increases SSD
performance and durability with
less energy requirements. NAND is
the primary flash type for all-flash
arrays, although not the only one.
NAND AFA primary usage cases are
high performance storage systems
and tiered AFAs that replace slower
flash/HDD hybrids.
SAS and SATA SSDs
SAS and SATA are the same
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Flash Appliances
Accelerates multi-host
application.
EXAMPLE: Docker environment
Combines fast performance
and high capacity in the 10s
of TBs
Efficiently processes mixed workloads
Simple feature set requires 3rd
Dedupe and compression optimizes
party functionality for data
protection and high availability capacity.
connection protocols we all know
and love from our HDD days.
SATA SSDs are generally slower than
SAS SSDs and are used for high
capacity storage systems that need a
boost in performance over HDD high
capacity systems. Flash SATA can be
manufactured in a DIMM form factor
and fit into a DDR3 DIMM slot as a
server boot device and cache.
SAS SSDs are considerably more
expensive than SATA SSDs but
deliver higher performance and
more functionality. SAS SSDs use
the SCSI interface and dual port
architectures. IT often uses flash
SAS to map fast drives to different
controllers for multi-path I/O and
controller failover. They also have
more native management tools and
usually come with dual ports. This
allows IT to map each drive to two
separate controllers for the fail-over
and multi-path IO that are often
required in enterprise storage.
PCI Express (PCIe)
PCIe is server-side flash that can
act as a high performance SSD or
server cache. When IT connects a
high-performance SSD drive to the
PCIe interface, data transfer rates
can achieve 252Gb/s and IOPs of 1
million-plus.
PCIe lowers resource overhead
and the requirement for HBAs and
drive controller components. PCIe
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All-Flash Arrays
High performance storage array.
EXAMPLE: NAND and SATA flash tiers
combine performance and capacity
High performance network storage
with intelligent data services.
is specific to the server (i.e. Direct
Attached Storage) so it trades DAS
disadvantages for high performance
features. Popular use cases include
mission-critical transactional
databases.
Non-Volatile Memory Express
(NVMe)
NVMe, a true high performer, is
a flash spec that enables SSDs
to use the PCIe bus to improve
performance and lower energy
usage. The specification operates in
between random-access memory
(RAM) and SSDs. The operating
system can access it as a storage
device, or as memory if the card
resides in memory slots.
NVMe drivers combined with the
PCIe interface results in very low
latency under heavy and mixed
read/write workloads. This is an
especially helpful architecture for
massively scaled databases whose
performance improves with server-
side flash.
Flash Purchase Decision
Points
The major decision points for flash
purchases include both technology
and business features.
Technology: On the technology
side, the foundational flash type
will make a difference. Even market-
leader NAND presents choices

between SLC, MLC, EMLC, TLC and
more. Device interconnects like
PCIe, NVMe, SAS flash and SATA
flash are also important to balance
performance, capacity and location
in the data path.
Use Case: Ironically, the last
concern for some IT buyers should
be the first: the use case. VDIs,
enterprise data center, streaming
web servers, and high performance
monetized archives: they each call
for different flash decisions.
Costs and ROI: Costs will also
influence your choice, but think
beyond the actual price tag to
overall value. Flash prices are
dropping but HDDs are significantly
less expensive. As storage pros
know, HDDs are not as fast as flash,
but perform quite well and, for
a lower cost, provide more than
adequate value.
Warranties and maintenance:
It’s important to consider
your vendors’ warranties and
maintenance pricing. Flash energy
costs are lower than HDDs, which
offsets some of flash devices’
higher purchase price. But if your
vendor offers a 2-year warranty
instead of 5-year or gives you a
low introductory maintenance
price then boosts it in years 2-5,
you’re looking at an expensive
proposition.
Before You Buy,
Consider These 9
Factors
No matter what your use case for
flash, there are 9 critical factors to
weigh when you are researching
your flash purchase: capacity,
performance, availability, durability,
scalability, support, management,
simplicity and connectivity. Not
every flash deployment will require
top features, but know what you are
buying and what tradeoffs you are
willing to make.
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Flash Points SLC
Cycles 100K
Performance Highest
Price/GB Highest
Bit Error Rate Low
1. Capacity. Understand raw
capacity, usable capacity and
average data reduction ratios with
dedupe and compression. Tell the
vendor the types of workloads you
are likely to use with flash, since
different workloads dedupe with
very different ratios.
2. Performance. Performance
entails three measurement: IOPs,
throughput and latency. As with
dedupe ratios, your performance
numbers will differ across different
workloads. As a reminder, IOPs are
the number of block operations per
second, latency is how fast the data
transfer begins, and throughput is
the measure of how fast each block
is processed.
3. Availability. 99.999% is the most
common enterprise measurement.
Asked to see detailed tests and
background, and find out how their
flash architecture achieves this level
of availability.
4. Durability. Specifically ask what
durability features the SSDs come
with. It should certainly arrive
with garbage collection, packet
striping, wear leveling and error
code correction. If it does not, then
you probably bought a cheap SSD
but will have to spend more money
on third-party products to protect
them.
5. Scalability. Be aware of scale
up or scale out. With the former,
see how far you can scale capacity
without hitting performance
7
TLC eMLC cMLC
300 10K 3K
Mid High Moderate
Low High High
High Low Low
barriers. If the latter, find out how
expensive it is to add SSDs for linear
performance and capacity scaling.
6. Support. Ask where the support
is located, and if engineers can help
or just read from a script. Also ask
how much support is built into the
AFA. Ask about native monitoring
services that send alerts about
performance impacts, failing SSDs
and reaching capacity thresholds.
Also, go over maintenance contracts
with the proverbial fine-comb. You
do not want to grab onto a lowball
price quote for one to two years,
only to watch your operational
budget double or triple thanks to
support costs.
7. Management. Determine
whether your AFA comes with
native intelligence like replication
and snapshots, monitoring and
alerts, detailed reports, self-healing,
application and platform integration,
de-dupe and compression and
caching and tiering.
8. Simplicity. Don’t trade heavy IT
overhead for performance gains.
Watch for automated management
functions including simple firmware
upgrades, hot replacements, policy-
based management and linear
scalability.
9. Connectivity. Connectivity should
serve you now and in the future.
Look for multi-protocol connections
and OS support. Consider both iSCSI
and FC connections; check those for
high-speed network connections.
 ?
Essential Questions To Ask Vendors
When Selecting Flash Arrays
All-flash arrays (AFA) are popular
for environments that need fast
performance and low latency, such
VDI and databases. But no all-flash
array is automatically right for every
environment. The trick to buying the
right AFA for your needs is to a) know
what your needs are and b) ask the
AFA vendor the right questions so
you’ll get accurate answers.
Before you make your AFA decision,
ask your sales rep these twelve key
questions - and make sure you get a
straight answer!
1.  CAPACITY: What is your systems’
usable capacity figure? No, really.
Ascertain the usable capacity figure
and understand what the vendor
considers usable. Ask about dedupe
and compression: When does dedupe
occur? Is there a performance hit, and
if so how much?
Also understand the vendor’s dedupe
ratios for different workloads. All
vendors figure in compression
to dedupe ratios, figuring a 2:1
compression ratio on the duplicated
data. So, if the vendor calculates a
10:1 compression on a database,
they’ll advertise it as 20:1. They’re
not wrong, just be aware of the
calculations that go into advertised
ratios. Also ask them about different
ratios for different types of workloads.
2.  PERFORMANCE: What are your
IOPs and latency figures in my
environment, not in your lab?
IOPs and latency are far less an issue
in SSDs than HDDs, but they still
matter. The ideal balance is high IOPs
and low latency, but these numbers
will not stay consistent across
different types of workloads. Mixed,
transactional and analytic workloads
are going to take more IOPs and
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potentially more latency than
well-behaved batch or sequential
processing.
Get the real numbers for your AFAs
real-world numbers for complex
and high-performance workloads.
If you add high-performance
applications later, then expect to add
more compute on your own dime.
But if your vendor miscalculates
performance figures after you
accurately report your environment,
then ask what they will do to
remediate their mistake.
3.  THROUGHPUT: How fast is data
transfer really?
Throughput refers to data transfer
speeds. (IOPs is the number of
operations the storage system can
perform per second, and latency
is how quickly the data transfer
starts.) AFAs value lies in high IOPs/
low latency/fast throughput but the
speeds you need in your environment
may or may not be realistic with a
given system. For example, different
storage protocols can result in different
performance results in AFAs. So can
error code correction (ECC) overhead.
Block sizes are also an issue.
Throughput speeds result from
the number of I/O requests per
second and the size of each input/
output block. A 4K block yields fast
throughput; a 256KB block slows
it down. The difference may be
negligible – or not. Understand how
overhead and block sizes affect your
AFAs throughput under different
conditions.
4.  AVAILABILITY: How do you
define “availability” and how do
you prove yours?
99.999% is a common availability
measurement for enterprise storage.
8
Ask what tests your vendor is basing
the percentage on. A knowledgeable
sales engineer will pull out detailed
tests to prove their claim.
Also ask how the storage architecture
achieves this availability percentage:
Software and hardware redundancy?
HA features? Automated load
balancing? Fault tolerant clusters?
Always-on systems are designed
to stay available during firmware
upgrades, capacity and performance
scaling and hot SSD replacements.
Make sure yours does the same.
5.  DURABILITY: Do you insert
advanced SSDs at the factory, or do
you buy them at a garage sale?
I exaggerate about the garage sale.
But some AFA vendors simply resell
inexpensive third-party SSDs, going
for the cheaper drives so they can
undercut competitor prices. If you
don’t ask the question, you might buy
an AFA and assume that it includes
garbage collection, packet striping,
wear leveling and Error Correction
Code (ECC).
Do not assume. If the vendor is going
for low prices, they may be using
cheaper SSDs without these critical
processes. Ask your sales rep the type
of SSDs they use and their native
durability features.
6.  SCALABILITY: How efficiently do
you scale, by which I mean I don’t
want to buy a new system within
a couple of years just to get more
capacity.
Forklift storage upgrades used to be
common. And feared. They are still
a necessary evil when a business
replaces one system with a different
vendor system or replaces a long-
outdated legacy system with a far
newer one. What you do not want is

to be stuck with the forklift upgrade
because scalability is not what you
expected.
Ask your vendor about their system’s
scalability roadmap. If the system
is scale-up, how much can you
scale capacity without affecting
performance? If the system is
scale-out, how expensive is it to add
nodes? How automated is the data
movement process when you add or
remove nodes?
7.  SUPPORT: How much will
support and maintenance cost
after the honeymoon?
Maintenance flip occurs when storage
vendors quote a low support price
for the first one to two years, then
significantly increase it in following
years. Some customers live with it as a
cost of doing business; others refresh
early using higher support costs as a
cost consideration. When researching
your AFA, pin your vendor down on
support and maintenance costs across
the entire lifecycle. Also understand
the costs of refreshing technology
before the end of contract.
Ask about support time zones,
expertise, and communication skills.
Many end-users prefer to speak to
support engineers who share their
native language or are expert at a
secondary language. Ask where the
support is located, and if engineers
can help or just read from a script. Also
ask how much support is built into
the AFA. Ask about native monitoring
services that send alerts about
performance impacts, failing SSDs and
reaching capacity thresholds.
8.  INTEGRATION: How well
does the AFA integrate with
applications?
It’s critical for AFAs to maintain high
performance and low latency with
hypervisors, management software,
the cloud and data protection
applications. Integrating with
hypervisors seems to be a slam
dunk, but the AFA needs to integrate
ENTERPRISE STORAGE: Guide to Flash Storage © 2018 QuinStreet, Inc. • 9 •
ENTERPRISE STORAGE: Guide to Flash Storage
not just with basic functions but
advanced ones. For example, ask if
and how the AFA supports advanced
hypervisor functionality such as
VMware VVOLs, or Hyper-V Storage
Spaces Direct and Storage Replica.
If the sales rep says that it does, ask
how the AFA adds extra value. For
example, does it add management
functionality to Hyper-V with robust
management toolsets, integrations,
and monitoring tools?
And look for RESTful APIs for smooth
integration with cloud-based
automation platforms like OpenStack,
HP Cloud Service Automation or
Veeam Backup and Replication.
9.  MANAGEMENT: What kinds of
management tools do you offer?
Your AFA should integrate with
existing management toolsets if you
prefer to use them. You also have
the right to expect high value native
functionality on the all flash array.
Once again, assume nothing. Make
sure that the AFA comes with features
like replication and snapshots, full-
featured reporting, monitoring and
alerts, autonomic self-healing, proven
application and platform integration,
global de-dupe and compression,
caching and tiering optimized for
SSDs, and thin technologies.
10.  SIMPLICITY: How easy is the
array to manage?
AFAs will offer performance gains.
But if IT spends more time managing
the array than not, or if it’s all too
easy to make mistakes on a complex
management console, then you have
not gained nearly as much advantage
as you should. Look for automated
management features like self-
healing, policy-based management,
linear performance and capacity
scalability, hot SSD replacements and
simplified firmware upgrades.
11.  CONNECTIVITY: How
connected is the array?
Multi-protocol conductivity and
multiple OS support allow you to
9
expand the AFA to its full capabilities.
You might have no intention of
using Fibre Channel if you’re an iSCSI
shop, or iSCSI if you’re an FC SAN
data center. Nevertheless, seriously
consider looking for an AFA that
comes with both Fibre Channel and
iSCSI connections. This will allow you
to protect your investment if down the
road you decide to transition to one
or the other. Make sure the network
connections are high-speed. Also look
at host operating system connections.
Does the AFA support Windows, Linux
and Unix equally well? It should.
12.  BACKGROUND: Is the vendor
here for the long haul and did they
originally design the AFA for flash-
only?
Most well-known storage/AFA
vendors are not likely to go under.
But mergers and acquisitions can be
difficult for end-users. Look at the
world-shifting merger between Dell
and EMC, and on a slightly smaller
scale HPE’s acquisition of Nimble
Storage and NetApp’s acquisition
of flash maker SolidFire. Since a
salesperson isn’t likely to confess her
company is being bought up next
month, do yourself a favor and keep
up with M&A news.
Another consideration is buying
an AFA from a new company. This
isn’t necessarily a bad thing: every
storage vendor started from scratch
and the hottest new technologies
can come from hot new teams. Do
your homework: ask questions about
the combined experience of the
company’s founders, how involved
they are in development, and if the
company is an over-valued unicorn.
(You might need to talk to a financial
analyst for that.)
Also find out if the AFA is purpose-
built for all-flash or repurposed from
an HDD or hybrid array. Caching
and tiering technologies that work
well for disk do not necessarily work
well for SSDs, which causes poor
performance in your all flash array.
 ENTERPRISE STORAGE: Guide to Flash Storage 10
Surveying Leading Flash Vendors
The following chart lays out an extensive array of product variables for any business to consider as they weigh a flash purchase. As you view
the metrics, refer back to the points made previously: is this feature/factor important to your business? Most important, as mentioned before,
look beyond the price tag for total value and level of suitability for your storage infrastructure.

Pure
Dell EMC Storage
Power- HPE 3PAR NetApp Fujitsu IBM Tegile In- Flash- Hitachi
Features Kaminario K2 Max X-IO ISE 90 StoreServe AFA A800 Eternus AF A9000 telliFlash Blade Vantara
Scale-up Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes Yes Yes No
Scale-out Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Capacity
Raw capacity (no dedupli- 1 PB 2 PB 145 TB 8 PB 79 PB 3 PB 6 PB 1.1 PB 792 TB 11 PB
cation)
Effective capacity 4 PB 4 PB 725 TB 26 PB 316 PB 14.7 PB 32 PB 5 PB 8 PB 34 PB
Networking (Max speed in Gbps)
Fibre Channel 16 Gbps 16 Gbs 8 Gbs 16 Gbs 32 Gbs 32 Gbs 16 Gbs No 16 Gbs No
Ethernet/iSCSI 25GbE 10GbE No 10GbE 100GbE 10 Gbs 10GbE 10 Gbs 10 Gbs 10GbE
Infiniband Yes Yes No No No No Yes No No No
FCoE Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes No No No
Performance
IOPs 1.5M 10M 400k 3M 11.4M 430k 10M 1.5M 7.5M 4.8M
Throughput 25 GB/s 150 GB/s 5 GB/s 20 GB/s 300 GB/s 12 GB/s 136 Gb/s 61 GB/s 75 GB/s 48 GB/s
Latency 350 300 micro- 1 ms 1 ms 200 1 ms 100 200 micro- 250 1 ms
microseconds secs microsecs microsecs secs microsecs
Storage Saving Features
Deduplication Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Compression Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Thin provisioning Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Management
Data encryption Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Snapshots Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Replication (synch or asynch?) Both Both Asynchro- Both Both Both Both Asynchro- Both Both
nous nous
Availability
Percentage uptime 5X9 6x9 5x9 6x9 6x9 6x9 5x9 5x9 6x9 6x9
(ex.: 99.999)
Non-disruptive software Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
upgrades
Non-disruptive hardware Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
upgrades
Warranty/Support
Base warranty: array Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Base warranty: flash Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Flash replacement if drive/ Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
module wears out before
warranty expires?
Price
Starts at $80,000 Prices start $58,000 Starting Not Starts at Not Starts at Starts over Starts at
with per GB rates at less than price of disclosed $20,000 disclosed $190,000 $100,000 $70,480
less than $1 per GB. $200,000. $45,000

ENTERPRISE STORAGE: Guide to Flash Storage © 2018 QuinStreet, Inc. • 10 •