Flash storage can help IT to improve data storage performance, but it can be difficult for IT to know which flash to choose for their business. There’s all-flash array, hybrid array, server flash, and traditional storage with flash. Here, we cover each flash type and the type of organizations in which implementing a hybrid flash strategy is gaining in popularity.

Enterprises today are experiencing an exponential growth of data. IT and data storage professionals are facing huge challenges over how to increase the performance of their data storage and management. In fact, in a recent Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) storage market survey, 418 IT and data storage professionals were asked about their organizations’ current data storage environments, including current storage resources, challenges and purchase criteria. 40 percent of the organizations surveyed identified “rapid growth and management of unstructured data” as a challenge.

And, in a September 2013 study entitled, “The Adoption of and Leading Use Cases for Solid State Storage by Enterprise Customers,” research firm IDC discusses the adoption and use of solid state storage solutions among enterprise customers today and in the foreseeable future. “Managing data growth and enhancing performance” were also cited among top IT priorities in that study.

Flash storage to the rescue

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Businesses need increased performance and capacity to tackle the data deluge they are experiencing, says storage provider NetApp. Using flash storage can increase this data storage performance, they say. “Powerful, rugged, portable, and reliable: there is no arguing that flash memory is a seismically disruptive game changer that has radically redefined what is not only possible, but also now even common, in storage,” said Mark Welke, Senior Director of Platform Marketing at NetApp.

In an infographic provided to SiliconANGLE by NetApp (scroll to bottom of this article to view the infographic), the company states that flash can deliver business value through “better IOPS density, low latencies, and low power and cooling requirements,” and thus, can “lower business risk, enable business to go faster and lower [costs].” 

In fact, the aforementioned IDC study supports this, finding that “flash storage improves response times by up to 90 percent.” Plus, more than 70 percent of IT and storage professionals indicated “improved performance and reducing latency as the two top reasons for implementing flash,” according to the book Flash Storage For Dummies, NetApp Special Edition by Lawrence C. Miller.

4 types of flash storage

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But there is no one-size-fits-all approach to flash, according to NetApp. They say enterprises need to adopt an approach that offers support on all levels of the stack—with the right mix of performance, capacity and economics to accelerate business. The company also states how “flash storage changes the way that data performance is delivered” and “how implementing the right type of flash can deliver true business impact.”

Let’s take a brief look at the four types of flash storage (these are mentioned in the infographic below). According to NetApp, the first kind is server flash, which is cache storage. They say this provides the fastest access with the lowest capacity. 

The second type of flash storage is called all-flash array, which they describe persistent storage that provides submillisecond access with larger capacity. Use of all-flash array is expected to grow to $1.6 billion by 2016, according to the aforementioned IDC study.

The third type is traditional storage with flash. This is also persistent storage, with scalable, cost-effective capacity, according to NetApp.

Hybrid array is the fourth type of flash storage, which NetApp describes as an intelligent caching solution that provides submillisecond access for cached data and leverages HHD for capacity.

Hybrid flash: Who will be using it in 2014 

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What kinds of organizations would benefit most from implementing a hybrid flash strategy? The type of flash storage that IT professionals are using depends, in part, on the size of the business. theCube, SiliconANGLE’s premiere production program, broadcast live from a NetApp event at VMworld 2013. theCube co-hosts John Furrier, SiliconANGLE founder and CEO, and Dave Vellante, Wikibon co-founder and CEO, sat down with Dan Timko, President and CTO of cloud service provider Cirrity, at the event.

In the interview, Vellante asked Timko if he thinks 2014 will be the year for the hybrid cloud. “I think a lot of it depends on the entity, the customer organization,” Timko replied. “We see the SMBs…don’t have enough of a workload to do hybrid so they’ll either keep it private or go all public. [When] you get more into the midmarket and the enterprise customers, they’re playing more in…hybrid. They’ve got a good private base right now; they’re starting to test the waters, move workloads up and do specific things with it.”

The aforementioned ESG storage market survey results revealed the popularity of hybrid arrays. The survey found that, among its participants, nearly one half of current solid-state users are “leveraging hybrid arrays this year and one-fourth of these organizations consider it to be their primary implementation type.”

Going into 2014, look for flash storage—particularly hybrid arrays—to continue to gain in popularity among IT and data storage professionals who need to increase the performance of their data storage and management.

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