Need Of Flash Storage For Data Centers

With changing technology and time, different alternatives were made available to store our data. Floppy Drives were used in the initial phase followed by CDs, and DVDs to burn media. But as we speak, these devices are becoming extinct. Most mainstream devices today including latest laptops models don’t even come with in-built CD/DVD drives.

If we go by market hype and what people say, in years to come complete world’s data will be stored in the cloud. But this can’t be completely correct as business need more control over their data then offered by cloud. As there are some critical data components they need. With this the need of flash storage (known by a fancy name SSD) and hard disk drives becomes important.

Flash drives as compared to hard disk drives are beneficial as they are nonvolatile, fast, don’t have any moving parts and hence performing data operations electronically is easy. This explains why data centers need Flash storage more than using the cloud. To understand it better we will cover different aspects of it in more detail and will explain you its benefits.

Must Read: System Reserved – The Hidden Storage Partition In Windows

Performance

Performance and speed are significant parameters used by companies to evaluate and decide the storage options. Flash drives totally fit on these criteria as they are 10X faster than the hard disk drive and they lead to greater agility, innovation and improved response time. The increase in speed helps application to dig into the data and deliver real insight to a business.

Furthermore, Flash devices decrease the access time and are 100 times faster than the HDD. Some important features of flash drives, in terms of quick data access are:

• With technological advancements new developments can be seen there are more NOR Flash drives that are driving performance to a higher rate.
• Flash drives aid to fast startup of machines, a critical necessity for most enterprises that have thousands and hundreds of devices connected.
• It efficiently performs I/O, data operations even with a higher user request and usage.

Durability And Reliability

Fundamentally, flash storage is safer than other memory types. They use much less power, take less space, and heat up less as compared to Hard Disk drives. Unlike HDDs they are resistant to high gravitational acceleration and thus protect data even after bumps and drops. Moreover, they are scratch free and there’s no fear of failure or breakdown as in case of HDD when more data read and write operations are performed. Thus, making Flash drive more strong and reliable when it comes to saving critical data.

Cost

Cost is one of the crucial factor in decision making, most of the times value is what force decision makers to decide rather than the usefulness. Despite of the fact that data is crucial and important many enterprises tend to make the mistake of choosing hard disk drives over flash-based storage. This is not correct as years to come this approach will not only lead to data loss but organizations will have to bear huge losses more than the cost of the device.

However, there is good news earlier Flash drives used to be expensive but as their market has started to grow their prices are starting to fall. Meaning enterprises can now go with the storage device that is 5X better in performance as compared to HDD. Plus, one should compare the price per GB per second rather than the total value and even they need to consider the maintenance costs associated with HDDs.

As HDD have moving parts there is more wear and tear as opposed to Flash drive meaning the amount you pay on their repair can be saved if using a Flash drive. Also, HDD’s consume more power and get heats up which is not the case with Flash drives.

Compact

We are living in a time where IoT is taking up all the things, soon enterprises will see that the number of connected devices will be more than world’s population. Meaning all devices including the handheld phones all will use flash storage. This not only means that Flash drives are future of storage but also implies increase in portability of data assets. Therefore, from today if both large and small enterprises start using Flash drives they can save themselves from all the hassle of managing data. They can have managed server rooms and won’t have to sit with the fear of accidentally losing data due to power failure or disk break.

All Flash Array

From some time now, there’s been a buzz in the storage industry about all Flash Array (AFA) and a steady growth of the same has been noticed. But what is AFA, for those who don’t know. All Flash Array is a solid-state storage disk system that contains multiple flash memory drives instead of spinning hard disk drives. These AFA’s are said to deliver highly scalable and cost-effective solutions to enterprises and are less complicated as compared to any other storage medium.

All the factors explained above will surely make transition to flash storage a practical option for enterprises. But there’s a downside to it, as flash storage is becoming a feasible option for businesses they need to more careful because as they also make data a little easier to steal and sneak. Therefore, one must be careful while trusting someone with the devices having active data.

But this doesn’t mean that we should avoid using Flash drive, due to a certain risk. Businesses will be using flash drive for active data and cloud to store inactive data thus declining the use of hard disk and focusing more on data center efficiency.

Must Read: How To Identify The Right Storage For Your Desktop Or Laptop

We hope you like the article, if you have any suggestion or opinion to share please feel free to write in the comment section.