Pure Storage Inc. is upping the ante for flash storage with the debut of a new flagship array that incorporates homegrown solid-state memory modules to provide massive improvements across every major operational metric. The launch comes on the same week as the introduction of another new system from one of its top competitors.

But whereas Hewlett-Packard’s new 3PAR StorServe 20000 series focuses on reducing costs with pricing below $1.50 per gigabyte, Pure is emphasizing specifications. The inclusion of flash drives in specifically configured sets of two makes the fourth-generation FlashArray//m more than two times denser and power efficient than the previous iteration, according to the official chart.

Organizations can purchase the system in three configurations ranging from five terabytes of raw storage with 150,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) to over 44 terabytes and 300,000 IOPS. Each model can have its base capacity more than doubled with the purchase of additional two-drive modules that Pure says are available under a “fair and flat” pricing model.

However, multiple FlashArray//mm systems can’t be clustered into a unified storage pool like the scale-out variation of the StoreServe 20000, at least not on launch. That’s a major disadvantage in bigger environments that require more than the roughly 400 terabytes of usable capacity in the top end //m70 model, but Pure Storage has indicated that this will change.

Until then, customers can take solace from the new cloud-based monitoring option introduced in conjunction with the arrays, which works much like the diagnostics service that rival Nimble Storage Inc. has been offering for the last few years. Data from deployments is automatically aggregated and displayed through a web-based console.

That centralized visibility could come in especially handy in environments that are spread over multiple geographies where bringing up a view of arrays installed in another data center would take much more work than it would in a single location. Pure1, as the service is called, has the added benefit of making that information more directly accessible to the company’s engineers, which can help speed up the resolution of support tickets.

Rounding out the package is integration with VMware’s virtualization platform, OpenStack and other popular management technologies that allows administrators to carry out their tasks at the workload level. The service is available at no cost as part of the company’s arrays, but the ability to consult with its engineers on diagnostic data costs extra.