Pure Storage launches next-gen FlashArray & FlashBlade for AI

Pure Storage has unveiled new updates to its hardware portfolio, introducing next-generation support in its FlashArray and FlashBlade product lines to address high-performance requirements, including artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads.

Product updates

The company's latest enhancements are designed to facilitate performance at scale for organisations facing increasingly intensive and diverse workload demands. The updates primarily centre on its FlashArray and FlashBlade offerings, both integral to the broader Pure Storage platform.

The new FlashArray//XL R5 has been developed to consolidate varied workloads onto a single platform by delivering a significant increase in performance and capacity. According to the company, this model doubles the Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) per rack unit compared to its predecessor and boosts maximum raw capacity by as much as 50 percent.

Steven Allgeier, Vice President Distributed Infrastructure Group at Fiserv, said, "At Fiserv we recognise our customers' urgent need to manage escalating data demands with greater efficiency. With Pure Storage FlashArray, we are able to continuously deliver an optimal all-flash performance with reliability for mission-critical workloads. We are excited to see how the benefits of the next-gen FlashArray//XL R5 will empower our customers to scale for extreme demands."

Pure Storage has also introduced the FlashArray//ST, a platform specifically designed for workloads that are sensitive to latency, such as in-memory databases and large online transaction processing (OLTP) systems. The FlashArray//ST can deliver over 10 million IOPS within five rack units, owing to its optimised input/output pathway.

The FlashBlade//S has been updated to its R2 version, featuring next-generation controller blades. The company states that this iteration offers up to 30 percent higher performance than competitors for critical applications including genome sequencing, inference, and electronic design automation simulations. These advances aim to expedite time-to-insight and consolidate organisational infrastructure for projects involving complex, data-intensive pipelines.

Single architecture approach

Another development includes the extension of object storage support to FlashArray, enabling a unified architecture for block, file, and object storage across the entire platform. This approach is intended to simplify management and deliver a consistent experience, addressing the challenges posed by the swift increase of unstructured data in enterprise environments.

Pure Storage described its strategy as a response to the common issues in traditional storage infrastructures, such as fragmentation, siloed data, and uncontrolled sprawl. The company's platform seeks to enable enterprises to manage, govern, and use data more effectively across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments through an approach described as an Enterprise Data Cloud.

John Colgrove, Founder and Chief Visionary at Pure Storage, said, "In an era where data is king and IT complexity remains a major hurdle to accessing and using data for optimal business value, Pure Storage is once again redefining what's possible for customers."

"Pure Storage delivers the magic by rejecting the norms we've come to accept for storage infrastructure; they are what's holding us back within this new era of exponential data growth and logarithmic growth of insight value."

Colgrove added, "Pure Storage was born to disrupt the industry, as we introduced new capabilities to reliably achieve better and better performance at any scale. We are unwavering in our mission to enable our customers' ambitions, providing the most innovative and reliable foundation they need to confidently meet any future challenge or opportunity."

These announcements arrive as organisations of all sizes face mounting pressures from rapid data growth, increasing workload diversity, and the operational demands of emerging applications such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. The new hardware and features from Pure Storage are positioned to support these evolving requirements while aiming to ensure efficiency and scalability for future organisational needs.