Why the flash crisis is affecting healthcare more than any other industry

A Q&A with StorONE CEO, Gal Naor

Q: Why is the flash shortage affecting healthcare organisations differently than other industries?

A: Healthcare has a unique data storage challenge because it requires both extremely high performance and immediate accessibility throughout the entire lifecycle of clinical data.

When an MRI, CT scan or mammogram is performed, large amounts of data must be captured, processed, and analysed immediately. That requires very high-performance storage during image acquisition, processing, and diagnosis.

But the challenge doesn’t end there.

Physicians routinely compare today’s study with exams performed months or even years earlier. Those previous studies are an essential part of the diagnostic process and must remain immediately accessible.

Moving them to a traditional archive that requires hours or even days to retrieve simply isn’t practical for clinical workflows.

Unlike most industries, healthcare requires high performance when data is created and immediate accessibility for years afterward. That’s what makes healthcare data storage fundamentally different.

Q: Why isn’t traditional archiving enough?

A: Traditional archives were designed for long-term retention and regulatory compliance, not for day-to-day clinical workflows.

Radiologists, cardiologists, pathologists, and other specialists routinely compare current studies with prior exams before making clinical decisions.#

If retrieving previous studies is slow or operationally complex, it impacts physician productivity and can delay patient care.

That’s why many healthcare organisations continue storing years of imaging data on expensive All-Flash Arrays; not because every image requires flash performance, but because every image must remain immediately accessible.

Gal Naor

Q: How are healthcare organisations addressing this challenge today?

A: Most organisations choose between two expensive approaches. Some continue expanding their All-Flash Arrays despite dramatically higher flash prices.

Others deploy an intermediate storage tier between flash and archive, adding more infrastructure, management, licensing, and operational complexity. Neither approach truly solves the problem.

Healthcare organisations need a data storage architecture that combines high performance, immediate accessibility, operational simplicity, and cost efficiency.

Q: How does StorONE change that equation?

A: StorONE Real-Time Tiering (RTT) was designed specifically to solve this challenge.

During image acquisition, processing, and diagnosis, clinical data remains on high-performance flash, delivering the performance healthcare applications require.

As data becomes less active, StorONE automatically relocates it to lower-cost data storage while keeping it online and immediately accessible at all times.

The result is exactly what healthcare organisations need – High-performance on demand. Immediate accessibility always.

For physicians, PACS applications, and clinical workflows, previous studies remain immediately available whenever they are needed.

For IT teams, everything changes.

There is no need to build an intermediate storage tier, no need to keep years of historical studies on expensive All-Flash Arrays, and no need to compromise between performance and accessibility.

Previous versions of StorONE already enabled organisations to utilise spare SSDs, unused NVMe drives, and even retired All-Flash Arrays. Version 4.0 introduces the next major step.

For the first time, healthcare organisations can utilise available capacity inside active production third-party All-Flash Arrays as the flash tier of StorONE Real-Time Tiering.

This enables organisations to increase the effective capacity of their existing flash infrastructure by up to 9× while preserving immediate accessibility for clinical workflows.

StorONE also provides enterprise-class security, data protection, immutable snapshots, replication, encryption, and an architecture designed to support HIPAA compliance requirements for modern healthcare environments.

Q: What does this mean in practical terms for hospitals?

A: Many hospitals have hundreds of terabytes of imaging data occupying expensive flash simply because clinicians need immediate access to previous studies and imaging.

With StorONE, organisations can dramatically increase the effective capacity of their existing flash infrastructure without purchasing additional flash.

That frees valuable All-Flash capacity for new clinical workloads while historical studies remain immediately available whenever physicians need them.

Instead of continuously expanding expensive All-Flash Arrays, hospitals can maximise the value of the infrastructure they already own.

Q: How does this ultimately benefit patient care?

A: The goal isn’t simply reducing storage costs.

The goal is enabling clinicians to access every study they need immediately while allowing healthcare organisations to invest more of their budgets in patient care rather than unnecessary storage expansion.

Patients don’t benefit because hospitals buy more flash. They benefit because physicians have immediate access to prior studies, and diagnoses can be made more efficiently.

Healthcare organisations can continue scaling imaging services without compromising clinical workflows.

Q: What is your message to healthcare organisations?

A: Healthcare organisations should never have to choose between performance and accessibility.

Clinical data must remain immediately available, but that doesn’t mean every byte must remain on expensive flash forever.

As imaging volumes continue growing and AI generates even more clinical data, healthcare organisations need a smarter data storage architecture, not simply larger All-Flash Arrays.

The future of healthcare data storage isn’t about buying more flash.

It’s about delivering high performance when needed, immediate accessibility always, and dramatically more value from the flash infrastructure healthcare organisations already own.

Learn more about StorONE at storone.con