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What Is Pure Storage

What Is Pure Storage?

Pure Storage® is a leading provider of enterprise-grade, all-flash block, file, and object storage. Pure delivers a Modern Data Experience™, allowing you to rely on innovative, cloud-ready solutions and the best experience in technology to transform data into powerful outcomes.

Who Founded Pure Storage?

Initially founded in 2009 under the code name Os76 Inc., the story of Pure Storage starts in the offices of Sutter Hill Ventures where John “Coz” Colgrove, a veteran inventor in the storage space, and John Hayes, former CTO of Yahoo!, teamed up to rethink enterprise data storage. 

Advances in MLC flash technology had recently reduced the cost of solid-state drives (SSDs) enough for them to gain traction as viable alternatives to the hard-disk drives (HDDs) used in laptops and desktop computers. The ubiquity of commodity flash for consumer electronics meant the technology was ready to be taken to the next level: enterprise all-flash storage arrays. 

Pure’s founders envisioned developing an enterprise storage solution that could deliver:

  • All the performance benefits of flash storage, including orders of magnitude more IOPS (input/output operations per second) vs. disk-based storage
  • A competitive cost per gigabyte for enterprise storage applications
  • Built-in data redundancy, resiliency, and security
  • A simplified flexible storage management system that’s easy to deploy, maintain, and upgrade without disruptions or downtimes 

Additionally, they had to contend with the single biggest hurdle holding flash storage back: endurance. The flash drives of 2009 could only support 10,000 read/write cycles—not enough memory real estate for the types of loads handled by enterprise data centers. 

They solved this problem by designing block storage array software specifically for solid-state devices. They started with a flexible software architecture consisting of two layers: 

  • A lower layer dedicated to the optimization of the physical storage medium for performance, reliability, and longevity 
  • An upper layer to handle storage management system-level tasks, including virtualization, communication with hosts, data reduction, scheduling internal I/O, RAID protection, and overall array management 

Suffice it to say, Coz, Hayes, and the rest of the Pure Storage team succeeded in deploying their vision. In January 2010, Os76 exited stealth mode and changed its name to Pure Storage. In August 2011, Pure Storage launched its first commercially available all-flash block storage array: FlashArray 300 Series. Today, Pure Storage offers a variety of enterprise-grade all-flash solutions for block, file, and object storage. 

Of course, technology is only one part of the story behind Pure’s success. If you’d like to read more about the origins of Pure Storage, check out our free eBook: Flash Was Only the Beginning.

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.

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What Does Pure Storage Do?

Pure Storage provides all-flash data storage products and solutions for data centers. Pure’s core product offerings include: 

  • FlashArray//X: A performance-optimized, all-flash, end-to-end NVMe and NVMe-oF storage array designed to provide block storage for Tier 0 and Tier 1 applications
  • FlashArray//C: A capacity-optimized, all-flash NVMe storage array for Tier 2 applications that leverages QLC flash to deliver flash performance at hybrid economics
  • FlashBlade®: A Unified Fast File and Object (UFFO) storage solution that can scale-out with your storage needs

Pure Storage has also partnered with other technology leaders to deliver plug-and-go all-flash storage and compute solutions fit for modern data analytics pipelines and AI:

  • FlashStack®: A modern converged infrastructure (CI) solution that combines FlashArray™ or FlashBlade with Cisco-validated technologies to deliver compute, storage, and network resources
  • AIRI®: A full-stack AI-ready infrastructure that combines the raw power of NVIDIA GPUs with the massive parallelism and high-throughput performance of FlashBlade

What Differentiates Pure Storage Products from Other Flash Storage Solutions?

The thing that consistently sets Pure Storage apart from the competition is its commitment to delivering a Modern Data Experience, allowing you to:

  • Turn bottlenecks into breakthroughs backed by Pure’s leadership in innovation and cloud-ready solutions
  • Convert data into powerful outcomes enabled by multicloud mobility, container orchestration, and as-a-service flexibility 
  • Extend your investments with modern data protection, Evergreen™ updates, and all-flash sustainability
  • Enjoy the best customer experience in technology

This commitment to delivering a Modern Data Experience has led to the creation of several key tech differentiators: 

  • Evergreen storage architecture that decouples flash storage from the controller to enable truly non-disruptive upgrades without the need for data migrations or downtimes
  • AI-powered analytics that catch issues before they occur and recommend solutions with Pure1 Meta®
  • UFFO storage that can power modern apps, analytics pipelines, and AI with FlashBlade
  • True consolidation of multicloud and on-premise storage resources into a single pane of glass with Purity
11/2024
Enhance Data Lakehouse Infrastructure
Pure Storage® has partnered with Dremio, the unified data lakehouse platform, to help enterprises build a future-proof, scalable, and efficient data infrastructure.
Solution Brief
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Browse key resources and events

CYBER RESILIENCE
The Blueprint for Cyber Resilience Success

Explore how IT and security teams can seamlessly collaborate to minimize cyber vulnerabilities and avoid attacks.

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INDUSTRY EVENT
Explore the Pure Storage Platform at SC24
Nov 17-22 • Booth 1231

Learn how Pure Storage can help you meet your AI, HPC, and EDA requirements.

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INDUSTRY EVENT
Join Pure Storage at Microsoft Ignite
Nov 18-22, 2024 • Booth 403

Discover how Pure Storage can effortlessly scale your workloads, manage unstructured data, and simplify your cloud transition.

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INDUSTRY EVENT
Future-Proof Your Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure at AWS re:Invent 2024

Meet Pure Storage at AWS re:Invent and prepare your hybrid cloud infrastructure for what’s new and what’s next.

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CONTACT US
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Questions, Comments?

Have a question or comment about Pure products or certifications?  We’re here to help.

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Schedule a live demo and see for yourself how Pure can help transform your data into powerful outcomes. 

Call Sales: 800-976-6494

Mediapr@purestorage.com

 

Pure Storage, Inc.

2555 Augustine Dr.

Santa Clara, CA 95054

800-379-7873 (general info)

info@purestorage.com

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