In the competitive data storage world, it’s all about performance, density and cost, and Dell EMC, Dell Technologies Inc.’s infrastructure group, is moving rapidly to meet customer expectations for all three with its recent Isilon storage platform upgrades.

“Our customers are gathering so much data through high-performance workloads, they need a place to keep it,” said David Noy (pictured), vice president of product management at Dell EMC. “We had to drive more scale capabilities into the product.”

Noy visited theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile live-streaming studio, during Dell EMC World in Las Vegas, Nevada, to answer questions from hosts Rebecca Knight (@knightrm) and Paul Gillin (@pgillin). They discussed the new generation of Isilon platforms, including architecture enhancements, and the emerging role of all-flash. (*Disclosure below.)

Compact, economical storage is key

Dell EMC faced a challenge in storing massive amounts of data efficiently and inexpensively, according to Noy. “Getting the data as compact as possible and storing it as economically as possible with a minimal footprint in the data center was absolutely critical,” Noy said.

At last year’s Dell EMC World, the company gave attendees a sneak peek at Nitro, an all-flash version of the Isilon node. What it didn’t say was that the architecture in that node was intended for the entire Isilon product set.

Because Dell EMC’s customers were clamoring for faster, scalable and denser storage solutions, the company re-designed its Isilon platform to meet these demands, and all-flash allowed them to improve time-to-results requirements.

“Many of our customers are pushing the limits of media production, genomic sequencing or chip design,” Noy stated.

Despite the move to all-flash, the Dell EMC executive believes that hard disk drives are not going to disappear anytime soon. One major reason for this is cost. “Spinning disk prices are just unbeatable from an economics perspective,” he explained.

Noy told theCUBE, however, that he does foresee a time when all-flash pricing will cross over with hard disk costs “on the high end.”

Watch the complete interview below and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s independent editorial coverage of Dell EMC World 2017. (*Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Dell EMC World. Neither Dell nor other sponsors have editorial influence on content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE