Skip to Content

What Are Forklift Upgrades?

What Is a Forklift Upgrade?

Forklift upgrades are complete overhauls of the IT infrastructure: Old and outdated storage is ripped out and replaced with the latest technology. Forklift upgrades are driven by architectural incompatibilities between storage generations or limitations in scale-out architectures that can’t add new nodes to existing arrays or clusters.

Why is it Called a "Forklift" Upgrade?

In an increasingly cloud-powered world, it’s easy to forget that all that data has to be physically housed in servers. A majority of server rooms still run racks of spinning disks, so upgrades to IT infrastructure will sometimes literally involve using actual forklifts to lift and move server towers in and out of a server room or data center. Of course, when most IT professionals talk about forklift upgrades, they’re generally referring to the immense challenge of balancing major software and hardware overhauls with the need to keep mission-critical software infrastructure up and running. 

For decades, storage customers faced a recurring cycle of maintenance cost escalations, expensive array repurchases, risky data migrations, and resource-intensive planning—every three to five years. Forklift upgrades are typically very risky, expensive, and wasteful, and keep IT budgets focused on running infrastructure instead of on innovating and growing the business.

Test Drive FlashArray

Work in a self-service environment to experience the management of a Pure FlashArray. Explore advanced features, including snapshots, replication, ActiveCluster™, and even VMware integration.

Try Now

Pure Storage® pioneered a storage subscription model called Evergreen™ Storage that has revolutionized the entire storage industry. Evergreen Storage keeps storage dense, efficient, and modern through every stage of the ownership life cycle, for 10 years or more, with streamlined customer service and exceptional ROI.

Pure products are modern and agile by design, allowing the latest technologies in controllers, external host and internal array connectivity, and solid-state disks (SSDs) to be modularly upgraded without any downtime, disruptions, or degradations in performance.

04/2025
Navigating the New Landscape of Data Management
Explore the impact of AI integration challenges on the landscape of data management and how the Pure Storage Platform can help.
White Paper
6 pages

Browse key resources and events

MAY 19-22, 2025 | BOSTON, MA
Portworx at Red Hat Summit 2025

Discover how Portworx and Red Hat work together to power modern virtualization.

Register Now
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
Betting against Data Gravity: A Fool's Errand

Dive into global namespaces and the history of related buzzwords that appear as a response to data gravity.

Read the Article
PURE360 DEMOS
Explore, Learn, and Experience

Access on-demand videos and demos to see what Pure Storage can do.

Watch Demos
ANALYST REPORT
Stop Buying Storage, Embrace Platforms Instead

Explore the requirements, components, and selection process for new enterprise storage platforms.

Get the Report
Your Browser Is No Longer Supported!

Older browsers often represent security risks. In order to deliver the best possible experience when using our site, please update to any of these latest browsers.