Content: Analysis

Could storage media shortages put a halt to VAST Data’s expansion plans?

Chris Evans

20 Jan 2026 — 8 min read

VAST Data recently announced a Flash Reclamation Programme, aimed at repurposing solid-state media capacity to work with VAST’s storage operating system. Is this move symptomatic of the industry, or a challenge for a software-only provider that explicitly chose to exit the hardware market?

Background

In a response to the perceived media shortage impacting the technology industry (more on that in a moment), VAST Data has announced a Flash Reclamation Programme, aimed at enabling potential customers to repurpose servers and storage for use with VAST’s storage operating system.

Graviton5 continues Amazon’s implicit x86 replacement programme

At Reinvent 2025, AWS announced Graviton5, the next generation of Arm-based CPUs for EC2. The latest iteration improves performance over Graviton4 by 25%, with a redesign that abandons the NUMA architecture of its predecessor. With more new capacity of Graviton being deployed in AWS each year compared to x86, will

Is custom storage silicon the next evolution for cloud hyper-scale platforms?

Ten years ago in 2015, Amazon Web Services (AWS) acquired a small Israeli company called Annapurna Labs. Its technology had been used to develop Nitro, the beginning of a series of custom silicon designs that started with I/O offload and evolved into custom Arm processors. As demand for storage

Newsletter #100 - What does the future hold for technology in 2026?

There’s no doubt that 2025 was the year of artificial intelligence, specifically the development and usage of large language models. LLMs generated significant volumes of news stories, reaching into the mainstream press and even some lifestyle shows (including Lorraine in the UK). While the technology is here to stay,

In Q3 FY2026, the Pure Storage juggernaut delivers another solid financial quarter

Once again, Pure Storage, Inc. delivered a solid quarter of increased revenue and margin growth. For the period Q3 FY2026, ending 2nd November 2025, revenue rose 16.0% to $964.5 million, with a 72.3% gross margin. Is there a limit to which this growth can be sustained? Background