Pure Storage believes it’s on the verge of a major shift in the storage industry, particularly regarding traditional spinning disk drives. Back in December 2024, they announced a significant agreement with an unnamed hyperscaler to provide their DirectFlash Modules (DFMs) for storage infrastructure.
Recently, Pure Storage formed partnerships with NAND flash manufacturers Micron and Kioxia. This month, they revealed plans to utilize Micron’s latest generation 9 QLC NAND memory. Last month, they teamed up with Kioxia, which will supply QLC flash for Pure’s DFMs aimed at hyperscaler clients. This move positions Pure Storage as a key player in supplying components tailored for hyperscaler systems, a big leap for a company that primarily made enterprise storage arrays.
The importance of this shift cannot be overstated. Hyperscalers, such as Amazon and Google, are massive consumers of storage, and if they switch to all-flash solutions, it could significantly impact the production of spinning disk hard drives (HDDs).
In June 2024, Pure detailed its work on adapting DFMs for hyperscaler needs. Unlike standard SSDs, DFMs are designed and manufactured entirely by Pure. They’ve created a system where data management can happen across both the drives and the overall array, enhancing cache efficiency and data placement. This innovation reportedly improves the longevity of QLC-based flash and reduces energy consumption while maximizing input/output speed and storage space. Hyperscalers buying in bulk will find these improvements appealing, potentially giving them a capacity advantage of about 2.5 times what traditional SSD arrays offer. One hyperscaler has expressed strong satisfaction after testing Pure’s DFMs in a proof-of-concept.
Pure faces a challenge in scaling its supply chain since giants like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud make up around 43% of global server production and prefer to use customized white box hardware. Pure plans to sell DFMs that integrate with these hyperscalers’ existing storage systems. Although the specific names of the hyperscalers involved aren’t disclosed, it’s known that Google Cloud and Meta are actively pushing for software data placement strategies.
Historically, hyperscalers favored spinning disk HDDs for their affordability, but these drives are slower. As artificial intelligence (AI) grows in importance, the need for quicker access to large data sets has prompted a shift toward SSDs. The latest QLC flash technology from Micron and Kioxia allows Pure to create DFMs capable of supporting 150TB soon escalating to 300TB, which equals ten traditional HDDs in capacity.
Kioxia’s newest NAND flash, which debuted last year, employs charge trap (CT) cell technology for smaller, denser SSDs that consume less power. Their testing shows that flexible data placement increases read speeds by 1.8 times and boosts NAND cell lifespan by threefold. Micron, already a supplier to Pure, also promises a new NAND design that enhances capacity by 19%.
In December 2024, Pure reported $831 million in quarterly revenue, up 9% year-on-year, but still behind Dell and NetApp, which posted revenues of $4 billion and $1.66 billion respectively in the same period.
Could this be the beginning of the end for HDDs? Pure’s CTO, Rob Lee, suggested at a recent event that their first hyperscaler partnership could be transformative and may drive a significant decline in the HDD market. The agreement announced in December to provide DFMs, promising capacities of up to 300TB by 2026, indicates a profound shift.
“They didn’t want to build it themselves; they saw the benefits of our direct flash and opted for integration,” Lee explained. He noted that the hyperscalers are responding to the explosive growth of data and the specific demands of AI, particularly for quick access to vast amounts of previously inactive data. He mentioned that about 100,000 exabytes of HDDs are produced each quarter, with “60% to 70%” going to hyperscalers. A significant reduction in manufacturing volumes could drastically alter the HDD market’s viability.