The data storage landscape is undergoing a revolutionary transformation, as cloud solutions and artificial intelligence integration revolutionize the way organizations store and manage data.

As a result, data storage companies have faced growing demands, especially given the importance of data security and sustainability in the industry. These cutting-edge subjects took center stage at the recent “The Next Generation of Storage” event — presented by theCUBE and Pure Storage Inc.

These developments play key roles in how companies are currently rearchitecting, according to theCUBE Research industry analyst John Furrier.

“User experiences are changing, the apps are changing and cloud continues to grow, which means that the consumption — how people buy technology and consume services — is right there,” Furrier said.

Analysts for theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, spoke with industry experts to discuss the evolving storage industry. They explored the impacts on businesses looking to leverage new innovations and the critical aspects of data security. (* Disclosure below.)

Here are three key insights you may have missed from the “The Next Generation of Storage” event:

1. Data is exploding.

Anyone who has followed Pure Storage will have watched the company’s evolution in flash storage, having first run somewhat against the grain regarding the technology. But now, flash has crossed over into economics, sustainability and much more.

With the storage market evolving quickly with the advent of AI, innovation is taking place in storage again. The unstructured data side of storage is truly exploding right now, according to Ajay Singh (pictured), chief product officer of Pure Storage.

“In 2023, roughly 120 zettabytes of data was put out there, and growing at roughly 25% a year,” he said. “That’s 30, 40 zettabytes added every year. If you think about the budgets though, on the other hand, on the storage teams the budgets are not quite keeping pace.”

The result is that many storage teams end up running the treadmill to keep the lights on and keep storage going in what remains a sort of ‘legacy’ mindset,” according to Singh. Flash storage, meanwhile, is changing things.

“Flash has traditionally penetrated the high-end, high-performance side of the marketplace. But we are now here with flash … truly penetrating every corner of storage, other than tape,” Singh said. “But all stages of disk and storage, flash is here to stay.”

With a new wave coming, a number of architectural conversations are taking place. But the true difference when it comes to flash really comes down to dealing with challenges associated with legacy storage, Singh pointed out.

“Every five years with legacy storage, you’ve got to do a forklift upgrade,” he said. “Typically, that means you have to bring things down and do a data migration. So, the reliability aspects are not there. A lot of times people are just used to, ‘Ah, that’s storage,’ but there’s a better world out there.”

That world looks like running storage with 100% uptime for 10 years straight with flash, according to Singh. Companies can also upgrade new technology with no downtime, which the company calls non-disruptive upgrades.

It’s also important to look at hard disk return rates, typically around 2%. SSD return rates are about 1%.

“Our direct flash module … [is roughly] 10X more reliable compared to hard disk, 5X more reliable compared to flash,” Singh said. “You can imagine, anytime you have a failure, you’ve got to run a whole, somebody coming in, pulling out the failed drive, rebuild a new drive. It’s a lot of labor. You don’t need to put in that much labor. You don’t need to have the same level of failure rates.”

Here’s theCUBE’s complete video interview with Ajay Singh:

2. Setting storage standards is being seen as critical.

With an expected tsunami of data set to roll in, service for storage has never been more important. Such services have changed from when storage was thought of as simply buying a box, and then when that box grew old, buying another, according to Prakash Darji, general manager of the Digital Experience Business Unit at Pure Storage.

“If we apply the cloud-like concepts to it, what if you could get the cloud wherever you’re at?” he asked. “Because applications sit everywhere, whether it’s on-premise or in the public cloud, you should be able to get that cloud experience anywhere. We deploy a storage endpoint.”

In an organization’s data center, they don’t buy the gear, and Pure Storage guarantees performance and capacity service-level agreements. Organizations can do reserved commits, pay-as-you-go on-demand but don’t have to be concerned about managing, running or operating asset or asset life cycles, according to Darji.

“They can just use storage and get the benefits of the cloud operating model and consumption model wherever they sit,” he said.

Of course, the advent of AI raises all kinds of interesting and urgent questions regarding storage. The big challenge for storage involves handling and optimizing more data and more compute, according to Darji.

“If you can’t get the data into the compute fast enough, you’re going to have a problem,” he said. “Enter flash … the next element then is in the optimization of enterprise data, my internal data, external public internet data. You’ve got to cleanse the data. You’ve got to bring it together.”

Here’s theCUBE’s complete video interview with Prakash Darji:

3. A second evolution of flash could be near.

As discussed, storage is evolving rapidly. But from a macro level, data is becoming more critical to the digital enterprise than ever before, according to Steve McDowell, principal analyst and founding partner at NAND Research LLC.

“It used to be about, we’re putting processes onto compute, and that’s our digital transformation,” he said. “But now we’re talking about data transformation. Some of this coincides with the rise of advanced analytics. Some of this coincides with the rise of AI, which is, I have data all over the place, and I need to consolidate that data — whether it’s a data lake or something similar. I need to consolidate that data and manage that data because that data is now driving my organization.”

When it comes to the current state of flash, it’s possible that we’re about to hit its second evolution, according to McDowell. Much of this is driven by the actions of Pure Storage, he explained.

“Ten years ago, Pure Storage was key in pushing the industry in the direction of all-flash, because legacy storage vendors really had no desire to go there,” he said. “It’s disruptive to them as much as it is to IT. But the value of flash proved itself.”

Today, companies are looking at technologies, such as quad-level cell NAND. QLC flash is now pushing down into nearline storage, according to McDowell.

“If we look at the density curves and we look at the price curves over time, we’re not far off where, by the end of the decade, maybe where we’ll see greenfield storage installations being all-flash,” he said. “That’s an exciting time. We couldn’t have visualized this even five years ago. But the densities, the price, the performance, the reliability that we put in around QLC make it a viable alternative.”

Here’s theCUBE’s complete video interview with Steve McDowell:

To watch more of theCUBE’s coverage of the “The Next Generation of Storage” event, here’s our complete event video playlist:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE Research is a paid media partner for “The Next Generation of Storage” event. Neither Pure Storage Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE