NetApp announces new flash storage portfolio, programme

American cloud and data management company NetApp has launched its quad-level cell (QLC)-based flash storage portfolio with the NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) C-Series. The company said in a statement that it can deliver high-capacity flash performance in a cost-effective, efficient and smaller footprint, but has not mentioned any price of the products.  

QLC drives are the latest development of flash storage technology and combine four switching states into one flash cell. NetApp’s C-series includes the C250, C400 and C800, which scale to 35PB, 71PB and 106PB respectively, the company said in a statement. Target customers for the C-Series will include those seeking to build a hybrid storage environment and customers upgrading from traditional hard drives.  

Besides, NetApp debuts AFF A150, a new entry-level storage system in the AFF A-Series family of all-flash systems, designed for remote or branch offices and is aimed at the mid-market segment. 

Puneet Gupta, vice president and managing director, NetApp India/SAARC. “As companies are looking at their bottom line in this economic environment, we want to meet their needs by providing capacity flash at a lower cost to entry in order to better enable their transition from hybrid storage to all-flash while staying in budget.”  

In addition, the company launched NetApp Advance, a portfolio of storage programmes and guarantees, which brings subscription upgrades to purchases of its hardware that can help to eliminate complex, time-consuming, and costly upgrade cycles.  

Organisations can choose on-premises or cloud storage options to future-proof environments to scale securely, seamlessly, and non-disruptively as they grow. Advance, which is available from today, also brings sustainability and efficiency best practices and capabilities that continually improve energy efficiency and operational performance to reduce carbon footprint, the company said.  

The NetApp AFF C-Series family and NetApp AFF A150 will be available from March 2023, the company said. Further, NetApp and its partner and IT networking company Cisco plan to offer these storage options within the latter’s FlexPod platform that brings operational simplicity, flexibility, and automation to manage data and applications across the hybrid cloud.  

NetApp reported its second-quarter fiscal year 2023 public cloud annualised revenue run rate was up 55% year over year, to $603 million, compared to the smaller 2% increase of all-flash array sales in the same time period, which ticked up from $3 billion to $3.1 billion.