The all-flash array market has settled down considerably in the last few years. While there are more all-flash arrays (90+ models) and vendors (20+) than ever before, the ways in which these models can be grouped and classified has also become easier. As DCIG looks forward to releasing a series of Buyer’s Guides covering all-flash arrays in the coming months, it can break these all-flash arrays into five (and soon to be six) general classifications based upon their respective architectures and use cases.

When flash first started to find its way into storage arrays around 2010, these all-flash arrays generally found themselves in two general groupings. On one side, you had existing storage arrays built to hold and manage hard disk drives (HDDs) being re-purposed and filled with solid state drives (SSDs). On the other side, you had emerging and new start-ups that were bringing to market all-flash arrays purpose built to manage and optimize flash.

Unfortunately, neither one really addressed the concerns that enterprises had. Existing storage arrays addressed data management, stability, and reliability concerns, but did not really deliver on the full potential of flash’s performance characteristics. New all-flash arrays purpose-built for flash largely delivered on flash’s potential for performance, but still left question marks in their minds in terms of their stability, reliability, and levels of support.

Those concerns on both ends of the spectrum have largely been put to rest by the current generation of all-flash arrays. While differences between their respective data management, performance, reliability, scalability, and stability on each platform yet remain, the gaps between them are not nearly as wide as they once were. It is as these gaps have closed that five specific all-flash array architectures have emerged that make certain models better positioned to handle certain use cases than others. These five include:

This maturing of the all-flash array market, however, comes with a caveat. It appears another round of maturation will again occur in the next 5-10 years that will create yet a sixth and perhaps final class of all-flash arrays: Composable All-flash Arrays.

This final classification for all-flash arrays may actually serve to be end game for all five of these current all-flash array classifications as software-defined storage takes hold in enterprises and the need for all-flash arrays to manage and deliver both data management and performance decreases. While that day does not appear to be imminent, in light of how quickly enterprises are adopting the cloud architectures and software-defined storage, the adoption and spread of composable all-flash arrays may occur more quickly that many suspect.

Editor’s note: This blog entry was updated on February 5, 2018, for grammar and technical accuracy of the AFAs mentioned.

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