DATA SHEET
Pure Storage
FlashArray//XL
Top-tier power for your most data-intensive apps.
Overview In today’s complex IT environments, ultra low-latency, highly
• As low as 150μs latency transactional OLTP databases and OLAP analytics systems have
• 45 GB/s throughput 4
shifted from niche solutions to essential drivers of business success.
• Up to 7.4PB effective capacity 2
FlashArray//XL™ delivers the most efficient performance, scale, and
• NVMe and NVMe-oF reliability your business needs to stay ahead. FlashArray//XL™ from
(Fibre Channel, RoCE, TCP) Pure Storage® meets the needs of today and beyond.
• SMB and NFS
Performance Density Addressing Today’s Ever-changing
• 3x more IOPS/RU over High Performance Workloads
competitors1 Legacy storage arrays have been addressing growth by retrofitting innovation to
• Up to 296 TB/RU usable capacity squeeze more performance and capacity out of aging architecture. The tradeoffs
are clear: complex, power-hungry, and space-inefficient hardware resulting
Highly Available in sprawl. This sprawl results in higher virtualization TCO and management
• Proven 99.9999% availability complexity. Additionally workloads like high performance databases require more
• Data-in-place, Non-disruptive performance with efficiency in order to manage spiraling operating costs without
upgrades consuming additional rack space. FlashArray//XL, leveraging Pure Storage
Evergreen® architecture and unified block and file platform, delivers performance,
• Built-in business continuity
and disaster recovery scalability, reliability, and efficiency with integrated intelligence, automated
workload management, and cyber resiliency, reducing complexity and enhancing
Simplicity operational agility for data-intensive and virtualized environments.
• Intelligent control plane with
Pure Fusion and Pure1
Performance Density, Efficiency, and Sustainability
Keep critical workloads at peak performance, efficiency, and sustainability.
• Unified REST API
FlashArray//XL is designed to provide the highest performance density with
• Self configuring and self healing
a level of operational and management simplicity simply not possible with
legacy storage. With Evergreen architecture, FlashArray//XL has unmatched
sustainability and efficiency, reducing the physical footprint, as well as power
and cooling requirements, all while delivering the performance required by
the most data-intensive workloads.
DATA SHEET
DirectFlash® Shelf: Lets you add additional NVMe capacity beyond the FlashArray™ chassis. DirectFlash Shelf connects to
the FlashArray storage via NVMe-oF protocol with RDMA over converged ethernet (RoCE), leveraging 100GB-per-second
Ethernet.
The shelf maintains the ability to support different sizes of DirectFlash Modules as flash density improves.
DirectFlash Fabric: DirectFlash Fabric lowers network latency dramatically and enables enterprise-class reliability and data
services via shared storage versus DAS. NVMe-oF enables massive optimization between the storage controllers and host
over fast networking: FibreChannel, RoCE, and TCP. DirectFlash Fabric delivers greater performance and efficiency gains,
including offloading the host CPU.
FIGURE 1 FlashArray//XL key workloads
Database Performance and Leadership
Supercharge your critical data dependent workloads, including financial services, ecommerce, and healthcare, with the
highest performance density storage for OLTP, OLAP systems, and vector databases. Powered by the latest CPUs and
memory, along with proprietary DFMs from Pure Storage, FlashArray//XL provides unmatched performance density for
ultra low-latency, highly transactional workloads. Use it to power SQL Server, Oracle, and SAP HANA databases along with
electronic health records (EHR) including Epic.
Built on our Evergreen architecture, FlashArray//XL includes built-in, always-on data resiliency, simplified replication,
and faster recovery times. Leave legacy systems behind by leveraging FlashArray//XL to gain end-to-end data confidence,
with the performance and protection needed to drive your business to the next level.
High Performance and Availability
FlashArray//XL R5 features three times more IOPS per rack units over running SQL Server over similarly configured
competitive systems.1 Sub-millisecond latency and 99.9999% uptime ensure fast, always-on databases that drive business
forward. Decoupling storage operations and database operations ensures that storage bottlenecks are in the past, without
compromising simplicity. Customers can achieve this without the burden of continuous manual tuning.
Robust Data Protection and Agility
Critical capabilities including instant snapshots, ransomware remediation, and a full portfolio of data protection capabilities
are included in FlashArray. This makes FlashArray ideal in scenarios requiring fast environment refreshes—rapid recovery
and secure, agile development. The benefits can be recognized by all customers, independent of the size of their data.
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DATA SHEET
Virtualization Efficiency and Ecosystem Integration
Stay ahead with a storage platform that has the flexibility to evolve with your virtualization strategy. Whether it’s VMware,
OpenShift, Hyper-V, AWS Outposts, OpenStack, Nutanix, or more—Pure Storage platform supports all paths forward for
virtualization to support mission critical workloads. Simplify and optimize your virtualized environment without compromising
on performance for your most demanding workloads.
Eliminate the complexities of managing virtualized environments by consolidating infrastructure while shifting from
infrastructure to workload management with Pure Fusion™ workload automation and integration with VMware Cloud
Foundation (VCF). Ensure virtualized workloads stay at peak performance without degradation with the highest performance
density for VMs.
By leveraging the performance and management simplicity of FlashArray//XL, your company can move from infrastructure
management to workload optimization, all increasing performance and reducing complexity and costs.
Operational Simplicity and Agility
Elevate your storage management to cloud like levels with the integration of Pure Fusion, vSphere, and FlashArray//XL.
While legacy vendors provide complex, mutli-layerd management, only Pure Storage offers a unified data plane and intelligent
control plane to automate data management, orchestrate workflows end-to-end, and leverage proactive AIOps to prevent
issues before they happen.
FIGURE 2 Intelligent management
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DATA SHEET
The intelligent control plane native to the Pure Storage platform is powered by Pure1® and Pure Fusion. It delivers the power
of AIOps and AI powered insights while also putting the power of automation at your fingertips. Unlike other solutions, the
simplicity and agility improves completely independent of the size of your fleet - meaning as you grow your Pure Storage
platform, management complexity does not increase. In fact, complexity decreases as features are delivered non-disruptively
with Purity updates. No separate licenses or external tools are required.
By moving away from complex legacy systems, Pure Storage customers gain centralized control, automated operations,
and faster time to outcomes, reducing complexity and risk, while freeing teams to focus on innovation.
A Monumental, Evergreen Evolution of the FlashArray//XL
Increased capacity and performance: The larger 5U chassis of FlashArray//XL is designed for today’s higher-powered
multi-core CPUs, which allows FlashArray//XL to increase performance over our FlashArray//X™ models. The FlashArray//XL
R5 is the next generation of the product which provides significant advancements over the previous generation.
The FlashArray//XL170 R5 delivers a 70% performance increase, and the FlashArray//XL130 R5 a 30% performance over their
previous generations. The FlashArray//XL170 R5 also features more than twice the transactions per minute (TPM) over the
previous generation FlashArray//XL170. Capacity has also increased in the new generation, with the FlashArray//XL170 R5
supporting 1.9PB raw capacity, and the //XL130 R5 supporting 1.4PB. The Evergreen architecture allows a fully data-in-place
non-disruptive upgrade to the new generation, unique to Pure Storage.
Increased connectivity, greater reliability, and improved redundancy: FlashArray//XLR5 doubles the host I/O ports
compared to FlashArray//X, for up to 32 ports per controller, and the //XL model provides more expansion slots for
configuration flexibility. It doubles the bandwidth for each slot, including full bandwidth for mixed protocols. FlashArray//XL
utilizes multiple 200GbE RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) links that are very robust to hot-plug and provide faster
controller failover speed. The RoCE controller links also offer Increased resiliency capabilities, including improved “cross-
controller” high availability (HA) with a nearly three-times increase in bandwidth, more stability at high array load, minimal
disruption during failover, and four power supplies that operate in an N+2 configuration.
DirectFlash Modules with distributed NVRAM: DirectFlash Modules include onboard distributed non-volatile random-access
memory (DFMD). Separate NVRAM modules are no longer required. With DFMD, NVRAM capacity, NVRAM write bandwidth,
and array capacity scale with the number of DFMDs, lifting the limit on write throughput.
DirectCompress Accelerator: FlashArray//XL ships with the DirectCompress Accelerator (DCA) card, increasing compression
efficiency by offloading inline compression to a dedicated PCIe card. It ensures maximum compression rates, even when
the system is under a heavy load, and stretches capacity to reduce overall storage costs and to extend the value of your
FlashArray//XL. The newest generation DCAv2 card offers an enhanced buffering system that helps run compression jobs
more efficiently, more engines per card to help parallel execution, and enhanced integrity checks for efficiency error detection
during data block transmission.
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DATA SHEET
Technical Specifications
Capacity Physical
//XL170 R5 Up to 7.4 PB / 6.6 PiB 5-11U (including DFS);
effective capacity2 Chassis Only - 2475-3160W(typical-peak)
Up to 1.97 / 1.7 PiB PB Chassis Only - 164lbs (74.3kg)fully loaded;8.72” x 18.94” x 29.72” 5
raw capacity3
//XL130 R5 Up to 5.5 PB / 4.9 PiB 5-11U (including 2xDFS);
effective capacity2 Chassis Only - 2115-2700 watts(typical-peak)
Up to 1.464 PB / 1.3 Chassis Only - 164lbs (74.3kg) fully loaded; 8.72” x 18.94” x 29.7” 5
PiB raw capacity3
DirectFlash Shelf Up to 3.8 PB / 3.5 PiB 3U
effective capacity2 566.2-667.5 watts(typical-peak)
Up to 1024 TB / 932 90.9lbs (41.2Kg) fully loaded; 5.11” x 18.94” x 29.7”
TiB raw capacity3
Connectivity • Fibre Channel Management Onboard Ports
• iSCSI/RoCE • 2 x 1Gb (RJ45) LOM per controller
• NFS/SMB
Other Onboard Ports (per controller)
Performance 150µs latency • 1 x RJ45 Serial
45GB/s throughput4 • 1 x VGA
• 2 x USB 3.0 I/O
Supported Expansion Card types (rear, controller)
• 2-port 10/25 Gb Ethernet, NVMe/TCP, NVMe/RoCE
• 4-port 10/25 Gb Ethernet, NVMe/TCP, NVMe/RoCE
• 2-port 100/200Gb Ethernet, NVMe/TCP, NVMe/RoCE
• 2-port 8/16/32/64 Gb FCP6, NVMe/FC
• 4-port 8/16/32/64 Gb FCP6, NVMe/FC
Additional Resources
• Learn more about the FlashArray Family.
• Learn more about Pure Fusion.
• Explore the Pure Storage platform.
• Read more about AIOps and Pure1.
1 FlashArray//XL170 R5, HammerDB SQL Server TPCROC-C.
2 Effective capacity assumes HA, RAID, and metadata overhead, GB-to-GiB conversion, and includes the benefit of data reduction with always-on inline deduplication, compression, and pattern removal. Average data
reduction is calculated at 5-to-1 and does not include thin provisioning.
3 Calculated using raw label capacity.
4. 512K 1:1 100% read.
5 Some maximum capacity configurations may use Pure Storage DirectFlash Shelf or Pure Expansion Shelf.
6 64Gb FC support can be enabled via 64Gb SFP+ upgrade on the same HBA.
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