Since computers have become fixtures in homes and offices around the world, businesses have looked for new ways to store more data and retrieve it faster.
Each new generation of storage devices sports more space and faster access times, but when your business deals with dozens of terabytes of data, it’s nearly impossible to store and process it in the same place. Enter the storage array. The new age of flash storage interfaces offers the sleekest, fastest, most durable storage to date.
Flash storage
Flash storage is nothing new. It’s the same technology used in portable flash drives. As the name indicates, flash-based storage is faster than most storage methods, and the technology has evolved quickly as well, with storage space getting larger even as devices get smaller. Flash is a non-volatile storage format, helping ensure the safety of data.
The technology has historically been an expensive form of storage, which made it ineffective for large-scale storage needs for businesses. Times are changing, though, and flash-based storage arrays have come down to prices that many businesses can absorb into their operating budgets.
Why flash?
Whether it’s external or internal, a hard drive sports movable parts, something no one needs when they’re looking for data security. Flash storage, on the other hand, is built sans movable parts, which allows devices to endure rougher handling without loss of data. It’s why people can carry thumb drives around in bags and pockets without seeing all their data vanish the next time they plug it in.
The durability of flash drives alone gives them an edge over common hard drives, but flash drives also have faster data transfer times, making the process of saving data more efficient. If you’ve collected half a petabyte of information, you want to be able to access it quickly and generate reports easily. A flash array is your best bet for quick report generating.
Flash drives for business
Flash drives are ideal for on-the-go consumers, but the low storage capacities of these drives made them practically useless in the business world. That’s where this newest generation of flash technology comes into play. These new flash storage arrays plug directly into your network and offer high capacity storage with the same speed and durability as desktop solid state drives.
Incorporating such an array into the workflow of a small-to-medium-sized business is still a significant upgrade, but businesses that depend on databases will find the upgrade worthwhile. The cost of a flash array is comparable to a hard disk drive array. If you can get faster performance for the same price per gigabyte, why wouldn’t you?
When it comes to flash storage, it’s difficult to know where the course will end, but the more flash technology moves into the mainstream of business and consumer workflow, the more likely it is that flash will become a standard in computer design. Imagine a time when dropping a laptop down a flight of stairs will destroy the body, but leave all data intact. Now, wouldn’t that be a beautiful future?
