Top SAN products powering enterprise IT strategy

Top SAN Products

Here, we examine the following SAN products:

1. Dell PowerMax and PowerStore.
2. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Alletra Storage MP and Nimble.
3. Hitachi Vantara Virtual Storage Platform (VSP).
4. IBM FlashSystem.
5. Infinidat InfiniBox.
6. NetApp All-Flash FAS (AFF).
7. Everpure FlashArray.
8. VAST Data Platform.

These storage devices target organizations of various sizes and support a broad range of workloads. Although this isn't an exhaustive list of vendors or products, it provides a good starting point for understanding many of the enterprise storage issues to consider when evaluating SANs.

Note that none of the vendors profiled here discloses pricing or licensing information. Please contact the vendor or reseller directly for further information.

1. Dell PowerMax and PowerStore

PowerMax provides high-end data storage devices that target midmarket and enterprise customers. Models can scale up to 18 petabytes (PB) of effective capacity and deliver up to 18 million IOPS, with read response times less than 80 microseconds (μs). PowerMax supports storage-class memory devices and 64 Gbps NVMe-oF. PowerMax 10.2 adds AI-optimized caching and supports up to 65 million snapshots.

To complement the PowerMax line, Dell also offers PowerStore, a line of storage products that targets the midrange market. These tools provide up to 11.3 PB of effective capacity and deliver more than 1.2 million IOPS, with latency running about 0.5 milliseconds (ms).

Both PowerMax and PowerStore guarantee 99.9999% availability. They include built-in intelligence and offer data protection such as snapshots, proactive monitoring and data-at-rest encryption. Both use AI-driven ransomware detection with 99% accuracy and provide deduplication and compression, with PowerMax and PowerStore at a 6:1 efficiency rate. In addition, they include components for integrating with systems such as VMware, Kubernetes and Ansible.

Dell offers its APEX On Demand flexible payment program, which includes consumption-based and as-a-service options. Organizations seeking additional storage options might also consider the Dell Unity XT or XtremIO storage platforms.

2. HPE Alletra Storage MP and Nimble

Alletra Storage MP, the successor to Primera, is based on a multinode active-active architecture targeting tier 0 enterprise workloads. An Alletra Storage MP system B10000 can scale up to 2.2 PB raw capacity and 6.1 PB effective capacity and deliver up to 2 million IOPS, with sub-500 μs latency and 125 GBps bandwidth. The platform guarantees 100% availability and includes intelligent, AI-driven software that protects against silent data corruption, provides end-to-end data integrity and supports autonomous operations.

HPE also offers Nimble, an intelligent, self-managing storage platform that provides Triple+ parity RAID for data protection. The platform also guarantees 99.9999% availability. An all-flash Nimble system can support up to 1.8 PB raw capacity and 6.7 PB effective capacity. NimbleOS 6.1.2+ includes VMware-integrated cyber detection.

HPE offers its GreenLake consumption-pricing program, which provides elastic scale and pay-as-you-go subscription options. Organizations might also want to consider Alletra Storage MP for unified block and file workloads.

3. Hitachi Vantara Virtual Storage Platform

The VSP platform comprises several product lines that cater to midrange to enterprise customers, supporting workloads ranging from DevOps to AI applications and mainframe computers. The VSP One Block series can scale up to over 100 PB of raw capacity with its B28 model, while delivering 10.1 million IOPS and 40 μs latency, with a bandwidth of 164.2 GBps. The VSP One Block 26 model can scale up to 50 PB of raw capacity and deliver 3.5 million IOPS at a bandwidth of 50 GBps.

All VSP systems guarantee 100% availability and include the Hitachi Command Suite, an integrated set of products for operating and monitoring storage environments. VSP systems also provide data protection features, such as replication and at-rest encryption, and offer REST APIs for integration with third-party management tools. Furthermore, VSP systems incorporate Pentaho data integration, aiding organizations to ingest and cleanse data from any source in any environment. Hitachi now offers performance and sustainability service-level agreements (SLAs) with financially backed credits for operational downtime.

Hitachi's EverFlex program offers customers a range of options, including purchase, lease and consumption.

4. IBM FlashSystem

The FlashSystem family of SAN products includes entry-level, midrange and high-end systems to meet a wide range of workload requirements. For example, the IBM FlashSystem 9500 can scale up to 64 PB of usable capacity and deliver up to 22 million IOPS, with 50 μs latency and 200 GBps throughput. An individual system can support up to 20 PB of effective capacity and 5.5 million IOPS. The FlashSystem platform promises 99.9999% availability and provides centralized administration and AI-driven insights that use predictive analytics to optimize storage.

FlashSystem storage includes intelligent software, a unified set of tools and application programming interfaces (APIs), and hybrid cloud capabilities that extend to third-party storage systems. It can integrate with systems such as IBM Cloud Private, Kubernetes, Docker and VMware vSphere. FlashSystem now supports policy-based three-site replication and multi-layer ransomware detection with 99% accuracy. It also includes data protection such as snapshots, replication, Federal Information Processing Standard Publication 140-2 (FIPS 140-2) Level 1 encryption and support for physical isolation layers. IBM recently added AI-driven ransomware detection.

IBM offers multiple payment options, including loans, leasing, project financing and certified pre-owned systems, as well as long- and short-term subscription options. Organizations seeking high-performance, high-capacity systems might also consider the IBM DS8000 series, designed for IBM Z and IBM i architectures.

5. Infinidat InfiniBox

The Lenovo InfiniBox line includes multiple models to meet varying data storage and workload requirements. The most powerful of these, the G4 family, can scale up to 33 PB of effective capacity and process 2.5 million IOPS with 63 GBps throughput and 35 μs of latency. SLAs guarantee 100% availability.

InfiniBox features a fully integrated, self-healing architecture with a redundancy design that enables rapid recovery. It now supports Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) object storage and NVMe quad-level cell (QLC) drives.

InfiniBox systems come with InfiniVerse, a cloud-based analytics tool that provides insights into the Infinidat estate and predicts how changes to storage infrastructure will affect application performance. InfiniBox also includes Neural Cache, a caching management algorithm that uses machine learning to correlate I/O history. For data protection, InfiniSafe Automated Cyber Protection now includes VMware cyber detection, N+2 redundancy, zero-impact snapshots and stored data encryption. Infinidat provides a comprehensive RESTful API and command-line interface for automating complex tasks. These systems also provide an HTML5 graphical user interface, InfiniMetrics, for management and reporting; a fully featured toolkit, Infinidat Host PowerTools; and a set of fully featured Container Storage Interface APIs.

Infinidat offers the InfiniBox FLX program, an all-inclusive, pay-as-you-go subscription model that can scale up or down as needed.

The Infinidat InfiniBox SSA G4 won silver in the 2024 TechTarget Storage Products of the Year awards.

6. NetApp All Flash FAS

The AFF family of SAN products includes entry-level, midsize and enterprise-scale systems to accommodate organizations of all sizes. Depending on the model, an A-Series scale-out cluster can provide more than 1 exabyte in effective capacity or deliver up to 15 million IOPS at sub-500 ms latency. An individual A-Series model can support up to 4 PB of effective storage and 2 million IOPS with throughput up to 40 GBps. NetApp also offers its C-Series product for capacity-focused QLC storage.

The AFF systems provide 99.9999% availability and come with SnapCenter Backup Management, SnapMirror Data Replication and SnapLock Data Compliance data protection. The systems provide real-time ransomware protection and comply with FIPS 140-2 Levels 1 and 2, supporting self-encrypting drives. In addition, they provide REST APIs and cloud integration and are pre-integrated with business applications such as SQL Server, MySQL, SAP and Oracle. NetApp AIPod integration supports Nvidia DGX for AI and GenAI workloads.

NetApp offers Keystone Flex Pay, which includes traditional financing and leasing, and Keystone Flex Subscription, which provides pay-as-you-grow subscriptions for a cloud-like experience. The Keystone Flex Utility option helps customers align costs with actual usage.

7. Everpure FlashArray

The Everpure (formerly Pure Storage) FlashArray line of SAN products includes the FlashArray//X series, which targets high-performance tier 0 and tier 1 workloads, and the FlashArray//C series, which is designed for tier 2 applications. The //X90 series can scale up to 4.4 PB of effective capacity and the FlashArray//C can scale up to 8.9 PB, with the former delivering sub-100 μs latency. FlashArray storage also offers 99.9999% availability and includes DirectFlash, intelligent software that implements global flash management such as error correction, garbage collection and I/O optimization.

The Pure1 cloud-based data management platform and Pure1 Meta, an AI-based service that enables self-driving storage, support the FlashArray line. In addition, FlashArray systems include Purity Deep Reduce functionality, which provides AI-powered compression, unified block and file storage, and enterprise-grade security. Purity includes REST APIs to enable drive automation. In addition, FlashArray systems meet the FIPS 140-2 security standard and include ActiveCluster for business continuity and disaster recovery.

Pure Storage supports the Pure as-a-Service program, a consumption-based pricing option that provides on-premises storage as a service. Pure Storage also offers its Evergreen Storage subscription program, which delivers seamless upgrades and expansion without disruption.

8. VAST Data

VAST Data focuses on modern, scale-out all-flash storage for AI, analytics, HPC and large enterprise environments rather than traditional SAN arrays. Its platform consolidates file, object and block storage with NVMe-over-Fabrics performance and massive scalability. VAST mainly competes with high-performance enterprise storage and AI infrastructure vendors rather than more traditional SAN platforms. As a unified storage platform, it includes block storage capabilities that function like a SAN without the classic Fibre Channel-centric SAN array, such as Dell PowerMax or IBM FlashSystem.

VAST Data's primary offerings are:

• VAST Data Platform: The overall software-defined storage architecture and operating environment.
• VAST Universal Storage: Unified storage layer combining file, object and block services.
• Vast DataStore: High-performance persistent storage engine for enterprise and AI workloads.
• VAST DataSpace: Global namespace and data orchestration across clusters, sites and clouds.
• VAST InsightEngine: Metadata, search, analytics, and AI-driven data intelligence.

These components work together as a unified platform built around a disaggregated, shared-everything architecture using all-NVMe flash and NVM3-over-Fabrics. Ethernet networking provides the physical/IP network fabric connecting servers and storage, enabling 25/100/200/400 GbE speeds in modern data centers. It features Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA), enabling servers to access storage memory directly over Ethernet with very low latency and minimal CPU overhead.

 The VAST Data Platform scales from terabytes to exabytes, including independent scaling of compute and capacity nodes.

Standout differentiators versus other vendors include:

• Scale-out exabyte architecture.
• AI/HPC optimization.
• Unified storage/services platform.
• NVMe-oF and RDMA-native design.
• Flash capabilities approaching HDD/TCO levels.
• Strong GPU/AI pipeline integration.

While not a traditional SAN-with-Fibre Channel offering, VAST is a great example of SAN-level storage capability and modern AI integration that achieves similar goals.

Selecting a SAN

Selecting the right SAN requires balancing performance, scalability, data protection and management needs across diverse workloads, while ensuring support for AI, hybrid cloud and mission-critical enterprise environments.

For example, Everpure Pure Storage FlashArray excels in high-performance workloads with low latency and high IOPS requirements. Dell PowerMax and PowerStore are likewise ideal for mission-critical applications with high scalability needs. Nimble and All-Flash FAS also excel in data protection and management. 

Use the following generalizations about each SAN vendor and product to help narrow the selection process:

• Dell: Broad portfolio, massive support ecosystem, strong VMware integration.
• HPE: Simplicity, AI-driven management, GreenLake consumption model.
• Hitachi Vantara: Extreme reliability/uptime for mission-critical workloads.
• IBM: Mainframe integration, cyber resiliency, regulated-enterprise focus.
• Infinidat: Very large-scale capacity, low TCO for enterprise data centers.
• NetApp: Excellent NAS/SAN unification, hybrid cloud and ONTAP ecosystem.
• Pure Storage: High performance, easy administration, Evergreen upgrades.
• VAST Data: AI and high-performance computing (HPC), modern scale-out architecture.

Specific selection criteria include:

• Performance: Latency, IOPS, throughput, NVMe support, suitability for databases/AI/virtualization.
• Scalability: Non-disruptive expansion, max capacity, scale-up vs. scale-out designs.
• Resiliency: High availability design, ransomware protection, snapshots, replication, uptime SLAs.
• Cloud integration: Hybrid cloud support, cloud tiering, Kubernetes support, API automation.
• Operational simplicity: Ease of management, automation, analytics, AI-assisted operations.
• Ecosystem compatibility: VMware, Hyper-V, Oracle, SAP, mainframe, backup vendor integrations.
• Support and service: Global support, professional services, partner ecosystem.
• Cost model: CapEx vs. subscription, licensing simplicity, power/rack efficiency, long-term TCO.

Decision-makers need a clear understanding of their organization's requirements for the above criteria. By aligning SAN selection with enterprise objectives, organizations can enhance data resilience, streamline operations and meet emerging demands in AI, analytics and regulatory compliance. Don't forget to ensure network vendors support SAN capabilities. High-quality network devices, such as those from Cisco or Broadcom, are crucial to the performance and reliability of SAN deployments.