Everything You Need to Know about All-Flash and Hybrid-Flash

Gone are the days when flash storage was expensive and had limited usage. Flash storage has seen an upward trend in terms of popularity in the last few years. The growing popularity is due to its ability to use less capacity with great speed and reduced prices. Even though flash storage is the current trend, there are instances where a hard disk drive is the best option. Sometimes an HDD is more economical and more efficient as well, which is the reason we see a growing demand for hybrid flash storage solutions.

Here we list down all the details of All-flash storage and hybrid flash storage:

• All-Flash: All-flash devices store data on solid state disks (SSD) instead of HDD. These devices are known to use flash media for persistent and non-volatile storage only. The all-flash storage is gaining traction because of its ability to improve performance and provide the same storage capacity as a hybrid flash in a small device. The significant performance boost in itself is what makes the all-flash an ideal device to run mission-critical applications. Since it also makes a huge difference due to the improved speeds. All-flash drives are not only quick they are cost efficient too. Plus they don’t require too much rack space since they are smaller in size. The lack of moving parts also makes All-flash arrays much more energy efficient.
• Hybrid Flash Arrays: Hybrid flash arrays are a mixture of both SSDs and HDDs. These hybrids provide the best of both worlds when it comes to usability. They offer the high performance that comes from SSDs and the predictability of HDD. Organizations relying completely on HDDs have experienced the benefits of adding flash storage for certain applications. This way businesses slowly transition into all-flash storage while not hampering their budget. One more advantage that makes hybrid-flash arrays a better proposition is the fact that traditional HDDs are capable of storing massive amounts of data. They also have the advantage of adaptability and efficiency. The massive amounts of data to make the HDDs slow, but mixing the speed of flash with HDDs makes for a well-balanced infrastructure.