Traditionally, SSDs rely on DRAM to manage data placement and wear leveling through a process called Flash Translation Layer (FTL). However, as SSD capacity increases, the amount of DRAM required also increases; This is an unsustainable trend due to cost, reliability and power consumption.
“A 75-terabyte drive requires about the same amount of DRAM as used in servers today,” explains Sean Rosemarin, Pure Storage’s vice president of research and development. This increasing demand for DRAM poses a major challenge. DRAM is more expensive and less reliable than NAND flash memory, the main storage component in solid-state drives. Additionally, DRAM consumes significantly more power.
Pure Storage offers a solution: Direct Flash Module (DFM) technology. Unlike traditional SSDs, DFMs offload FTL operations to the storage array controller and software, eliminating the need for DRAM on the drive itself. This allows Pure to bypass the DRAM bottleneck, paving the way for significantly higher SSD capacity.
Pure projects DFM capacity to reach 150 TB by 2025; It plans to expand to 300TB in 2026 and even 1.2 petabytes per DFM in the future.
Source: Ferra
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