Meet the new IBM FlashSystem C200

Written by Chelsey G.

In an ever growing and evolving data landscape, the merging of hardware, software, and services into a comprehensive storage platform is critical for businesses of all sizes across the world.

There's a growing need to meet data storage requirements across both traditional data and AI data, and advancements like AI and machine learning technologies aim to enable transformative data management through intelligent maintenance, and automated operations. How then can businesses meet the growing needs of data centers and architect their data storage to be both effortless, and consistent to manage?

Transforming Data Centers

With significant advancements to our intelligent storage platform, IBM FlashSystem now provides IT architects automated support, with the ability to connect storage as needed for meeting business requirements, including workloads and data tiers.

These capabilities can provide at least 40% lifecycle cost savings as compared to manual modeling1, by managing data storage with AI recommendations, business service level agreements (SLAs) and policies. This savings results in businesses of any size having the ability to automate, optimize, and secure their data storage and data centers as needed.

IBM FlashSystem now provides IT architects automated support, with the ability to connect storage as needed for meeting business requirements, including workloads and data tiers.

The Foundation of a Storage Platform

The FlashSystem grid provides the foundational platform capabilities needed to simplify and optimize workload placement across your entire data storage fleet, guaranteeing non-disruptive data moves – no swing box required2.

To achieve this important functionality, the FlashSystem grid acts as an intelligent interconnect between storage arrays to provide a single point of management for your entire storage estate. This facilitates the movement of data within smart partitions by maintaining the context and integrity of associated data services including snapshots, replication, and backup. The partitions include metadata and additional unique features of the FlashSystem grid to make this simple yet complete approach to data mobility possible.?

These features ensure data and applications are always on a performant storage tier and have the capacity they need to meet end-user expectations.?

Balance Cost and Capacity with IBM FlashSystem C200

The new IBM FlashSystem C200 is available starting today and is designed for 5.5x more write cycles than industry-standard QLC drives3,?and for any systems under maintenance contract, a guaranteed drive replacement?, no questions asked.

Compared to other flash technologies, FlashSystem C200 offers:

? Higher capacity

? Better affordability

And in the context of a storage platform, this balance between cost, performance, and capacity is ideal for capacity-intensive applications and integral for data lifecycle management strategies.?

Additionally, the FlashSystem C200 offers more efficient tiered storage when used with the FlashSystem grid, where data is then categorized based on access frequency and stored on appropriate media types. Allowing for less frequently accessed ‘cold’ data to be efficiently stored while freeing up high-speed, high-endurance storage for ‘hot’ data across the FlashSystem grid.

Lastly, the FlashSystem C200 doesn’t require the use of other technologies, allowing for all flash for everything, while extending your flash capabilities to workloads that have traditionally been stored on other types of media.

The Need for Intelligent Future-Proof Data Storage

For data centers of all sizes, the foundational platform capability of the FlashSystem grid, and the ability to connect multiple storage arrays, including FlashSystem C200, represent a significant step towards realizing a future-ready data storage platform. A platform that supports storage for both traditional data, and AI data, and built for data centers of all sizes across the world.

This combination of robust replication and availability features results in a data storage platform solution that caters to the diverse needs?of modern businesses, including healthcare, financial services, and government.

As we navigate the data-driven future, data platforms will not only be a cornerstone of IT infrastructure but also a catalyst for business innovation and growth.

"We’re excited about the announcement of the IBM FlashSystem C200, which we feel complements the rest of the FlashSystem family nicely. It’s not just a backup box, there are many use cases for this, such as bringing data back from public cloud or for applications that don’t require sub 1ms latency." - Darren Sanders, Celerity Limited

Learn more about the new IBM FlashSystem C200 on our website.

1IBM sponsored report: Analyzing the Economic Benefits of IBM Storage Assurance ESG Report (Page 7) https://www.ibm.com/downloads/documents/us-en/10a99803f32fd7b3

2Through IBM Storage Assurance Perpetual, IBM guarantees that data can be moved between FlashSystem devices while always maintaining an active path to data from servers and applications using the data, when Storage Partitions are migrated as described in the IBM Storage FlashSystem documentation for the relevant Storage Virtualize release and FlashSystem platform.

3Industry-standard QLC expects about 1,000 P/E (i.e.: write) cycles, https://www.solved.scality.com/is-all-flash-the-best-choice/, whereas FlashCore Module 4 drives, which are in the C200, achieve 5,500 P/E cycles prior to wear out, using internal testing developed using the JEDEC Standards for Retention.

?Please see details and definition of maintenance in the maintenance contract found here: https://www.ibm.com/support/customer/csol/terms/?ref=Z126-8971-04-05-2023-us-en