The new versions of Purity software that runs Pure's FlashBlade and FlashArray storage units feature added support for snapshots plus a broader range of file services.

Purity's new SafeMode feature provides immutable snapshots to help protect against disasters ransomware attacks. The automatically created and managed snapshots are retained according to the customer's policy subject to a 30-day maximum.

Purity 3.2 for FlashBlade features native SMB support across all blades in the cluster, providing replication, file system rollback, and SafeMode snapshots to SMB workloads. Access control interoperability is provided across SMB and NFS, and S3 simple user policies are supported.

SMB support is particularly relevant to the healthcare sector, said Pure Storage FlashBlade business unit vice president of strategy and solutions Amy Fowler, as applications such as medical imaging tend to be SMB based. Furthermore, Pure's approach means data can be kept for years without having to be copied during hardware upgrades.

And a FlashBlade running Purity 3.2 can handle SQL backup at scale, she added, with backup speeds in excess of 1TB per minute, with restores as fast as 1.2PB per day.

Other new features include sparse file support, granular real-time insights down to the user level, and enhanced object storage.

Purity 6.1 for FlashArray expands ActiveCluster with symmetric, active-active clustering to make full use of all hardware, automatically reflecting all changes on the second site.

Support for FC-NVMe accelerates some workloads by up to 50%, thanks to halving latency and doubling IOPS compared with SCSI-FC. All that's needed to take advantage of this new capability is a Gen 5 or 6 fibre channel switch, Pure Storage vice president for product marketing Scott Baker told iTWire.

FlashArray can now be used for file server consolidation and storing VDI user profiles, in addition to existing workloads.

The new Purity features for FlashArray are available immediately, and those for FlashBlade will be available this quarter.

Hardware changes to the FlashArray//C family increase performance by 15% and storage efficiency by 33%, as well as allowing three times as many snapshots.

According to Pure, this new R3 hardware means FlashArray is now 30% of the cost of hybrid storage despite delivering consistently lower latency.

Capacity upgrades are now more granular thanks to a two-drive expansion option in addition to the existing 10-drive upgrade.

In addition. the FlashArray//C40 R3 is available with capacity as small as 247TB.

Customers can take advantage of Pure's 'Evergreen' policy to upgrade a FlashArray//C60 to a //C60 R3, or a //C40 to a //C60.

"Pure is named a leader in the recent Gartner Magic Quadrant for primary storage arrays and positioned highest and farthest in both vectors because we are chipping away at the complexity baked into legacy storage that is simply not designed for the digital age. Our vision for a modern data experience empowers organisations to innovate by providing a dynamic, cloud-based storage experience that is flexible, on-demand, and delivered as code," said Pure Storage chief product officer Ajay Singh.