An all-flash array (AFA) is a storage infrastructure that contains flash memory drives instead of spinning-disk drives. All-flash storage is also referred to as a solid-state array (SSA). AFAs and SSAs offer speed, performance, and agility for your business applications.
For much of modern history, data centers have been dominated by hard-disk drive (HDD) technologies configured as network-attached storage (NAS) and/or storage area networks (SANs).
With the advent of solid-state drives (SSDs), data storage companies started offering expensive high-performance flash memory solutions for Tier 0 and Tier 1 data applications. The lack of spinning disks means solid-state drives are orders of magnitude faster than traditional technologies.
Thanks to Moore’s Law, flash storage continued to become more cost-effective, making the all-flash versions of NAS devices and SANs economically feasible.
As you might guess, simply switching out your HDDs with SSDs is enough to increase the speed and performance of your NAS and SAN solutions. The benefits of an all-flash array are the same as the benefits of flash memory itself.
Generally speaking, all-flash arrays are the fastest and most performant. These are followed by hybrid arrays which use a combination of flash and HDD within the same storage array. While not as fast as all-flash arrays, cheaper HDD racks may be used to add capacity when performance isn’t needed. Traditional arrays are the slowest.
Product and program availability varies by region.
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