Pure Storage: New systems to herald the end of hard disks
It has been said for years that the days of HDDs in IT infrastructure are numbered, but the opposite was the case. Now a new attempt is being made.
(Image: Konstantin Yolshin/Shutterstock.com)
- Harald Weiss
Pure Storage has expanded its range of storage systems for AI with "GenAI Pod". The new system is based on the Pure Storage platform and includes validated designs that can be used to create turnkey solutions for GenAI applications. This is a full-stack solution with one-click deployments for vector databases and base models. The integration of Portworx allows automated deployment of Nvidia NeMo and NIM microservices via the Nvidia AI Enterprise software platform and the Milvus vector database.
Pure Storage's full stack includes hardware and software as well as the base models and professional services from leading AI vendors. The first validated designs have been created with partners Arista, Cisco, KX, Meta, Nvidia, Red Hat, SuperMicro and WWT. Pure Storage has also announced the certification of the Ethernet-based FlashBlade//S500 with Nvidia DGX SuperPOD. These new validated GenAI designs, along with FlashBlade//S500 with NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD, expand their AI portfolio of offerings, including AIRI with Nvidia DGX BasePOD, validated Nvidia OVX servers, and FlashStack for AI with Cisco.
Storage architectures are changing
With these announcements, Pure Storage is following the current trend in storage architectures, which are undergoing a profound change due to the training and deployment of GenAI and Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) in private clouds. Whereas tiered storage was previously considered the optimum in terms of price/performance, homogeneous, standardized storage platforms are now required for training and fine-tuning AI models. This is because all available company data must be available – no matter where it is or how "hot" or "cold" it is.
This not only means a uniformly short access time, but also greater flexibility of the entire storage infrastructure. For example, the available storage volume must be quickly expandable from a few hundred gigabytes to several petabytes.
Will HDDs become obsolete?
However, these new AI requirements can no longer be met by traditional HDDs, meaning that this decades-old technology is coming under increasing pressure. Pure Storage's CEO Charlie Giancarlo said last year that "by 2028 at the latest, all HDDs will have disappeared from corporate networks." But that may be much sooner, as Pure Storage has just announced a major partnership with a hyperscaler to migrate all online storage to Pure Storage's DirectFlash Modules (DFMs).
In a conference call with investors, Giancarlo said that "the deal can be a bellwether for all future online storage at the major hyperscalers". And his CTO Rob Lee added: "I think this deal is probably the biggest nail in the coffin for HDD technology."
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Pure Storage's DFMs are not ordinary SSDs as sold by the major drive manufacturers. Pure Storage uses its own design and manufacture and also designs the controller systems. They can also be used to distribute data management functions to the drive and array systems. On the hardware side, the DFMs are based on Gen 9 QLC NAND memory from Micron and QLC flash from Kioxia, which use charge trap cells (CT cells). This currently allows DFMs with 150 TByte to be produced – 300 TByte is already within the realms of possibility.
It is not officially known which hyperscaler Pure Storage has concluded the deal with. However, it has been made public that at least GCP and Meta have recently pushed ahead with the introduction of such storage systems.
(olb)
