Live Webinar · Wednesday, October 7, 2026

How to use HCI and Hard Drives to Fight Data Center Inflation

Watch a running VM move from flash to hard drives and back without going offline, and see how VergeOS runs most workloads on hard drives at a fraction of the cost of flash.

GC
George Crump
George Crump
Founder, Storage Switzerland
DV
Dave Vincent
Dave Vincent
Technical Solutions Strategist
Live from Palo Alto · 2:00 PM ET · Live Demo + Q&A
TIER 1 · NVMe FLASH Live move VM stays online TIER 4 · HARD DRIVES Workload VM online
01 / 12
Today’s Agenda

From the Price Sheet to a Live Demo

01
Inflation
Data Center Inflation Reaches the Drive Bay
Flash and memory prices climbed 70 to 95 percent in the first half of 2026, and AI demand keeps the pressure on.
02
Economics
All-Flash by Default Is a Budget Decision
Every HCI platform ships all-flash, so every workload pays flash prices whether it needs the performance or not.
03
Control
Pick the Tier and Change Your Mind
Move running VMs between flash and hard drives on command, in either direction, with no downtime.
04
Performance
How VergeOS Makes Hard Drives Perform
Read prefetching, write reordering, RAM caching next to the VM and global inline deduplication.
05
Protect
Protect High-Capacity Drives
Parallel rebuilds, frequent snapshots and ioGuardian, followed by live Q&A.
06
Live Demo
Flash to Hard Drive and Back
Dave Vincent moves a live workload to the hard drive tier and returns it to flash with the VM online.
verge.io
02 / 12
01 · Inflation

Data Center Inflation Reaches the Drive Bay

STREET PRICE PER TERABYTE Solidigm D7-PS1010 · 15.36 TB NVMe $814 Kioxia KCMYXRUG15T3 · 15.36 TB NVMe $706 WD Ultrastar DC HC580 · 24 TB hard drive $56 Flash costs 12 to 14 times more per terabyte
ServerSupply street prices checked September 28, 2026. Prices move week to week.
70–95%
Flash and memory price climb
First half of 2026
12–14×
Flash premium per terabyte
15.36 TB NVMe vs. a 24 TB hard drive
8
Hard drives for one SSD
One SSD’s price buys 192 TB of raw hard drive capacity
AI
Keeps the pressure on
AI buildouts absorb new fab capacity as fast as it comes online
Plan your next refresh as if this pricing is permanent.
PollHow did your last flash or server quote compare with the one before it?
verge.io
03 / 12
02 · Economics

All-Flash by Default Is a Budget Decision

  • The platform made the choice. HCI vendors assumed flash would keep getting cheaper, so all-flash became the default.
  • Every terabyte pays twice. Refresh capacity pays the flash price, and capacity-based licensing charges for it again.
  • Most workloads sit idle. File shares, VDI profiles, dev and test, log retention and general-purpose VMs rarely need flash.
  • Databases are the exception. Random-I/O workloads stay on flash. Everything else deserves a choice.
All-flash default: every VM pays flash prices Placed by need: flash for the working set only Flash Hard drive
Illustrative mix. Your own number is the poll question below.
Hard drives are slower than flash. They are not tape.
PollWhat share of your VMs need flash performance every hour of every day?
verge.io
04 / 12
03 · Control

Pick the Tier and Change Your Mind

How a tier move works (VergeOS) SQL Server VM Online · serving queries OS 80 GB Tier 1 Data 200 GB Tier 1 moving… Tier 4 Log 40 GB Tier 1 TempDB 40 GB Tier 1 Backup 150 GB Tier 4 Storage media cost $263 Saved $130 · 49% Tier 1 · NVMe Performance: OS, transaction log, tempdb Tier 4 · HDD High capacity, cost-effective OS80 GB Log40 GB TempDB40 GB Backup150 GB Data200 GB Data200 GB Preferred Tier changed: Tier 1 → Tier 4 · live, online background migration Move complete · no downtime Capacity after the move Flash 160 GB HDD 350 GB · 69% of the VM
  • Pick the tier. Change one setting on the drive and VergeOS moves the data in the background.
  • Change your mind. Move it back to flash the same way. The VM stays online, with no maintenance window.
  • 1.3 seconds. API acknowledgment in VergeIO lab testing. A 25 GB disk finished moving in 13 seconds.
  • $263 to $133. The VM’s storage media cost drops 49%.
Cost basis: raw media at $706/TB for a 15.36 TB NVMe SSD and $56/TB for a 24 TB HDD, street prices September 28, 2026. Excludes redundancy copies.
verge.io
05 / 12
04 · Performance

How VergeOS Makes Hard Drives Perform

VergeOS runs separate code written for the access patterns of spinning disk. Four techniques do the work before a request ever reaches a platter.

01
Cluster-Wide Read Prefetching
VergeOS spots sequential reads, predicts the next blocks and pulls them in parallel from hard drives across the cluster into RAM. Random reads trigger nothing, so no work is wasted.
02
Write Reordering
Incoming random writes are reordered and grouped into sequential runs before they reach the platter, the access pattern hard drives handle best. Don’t waste the spin.
03
RAM Caching Next to the VM
A cache in RAM on the server running the VM takes network latency out of reads. VergeIO testing shows four to five times the hit rate of array-side caching.
04
Global Inline Deduplication
Deduplication runs across every tier, so the cluster stores fewer blocks and more of the working set fits in cache.
The guest does nothing to earn this. A single-stream read gets the same help as a tuned one.
verge.io
06 / 12
05 · Protect

Protect High-Capacity Drives

A 24 TB drive raises a fair question: what happens to the data while it rebuilds? VergeOS answers it three ways.

01
Parallel Rebuilds
A rebuild reads from many hard drives across the cluster at once and writes as sequentially as possible, so a large drive does not rebuild at random-I/O speed.
02
Frequent Snapshots
Snapshots run on a schedule the IT team controls, hourly by default, giving every VM on the hard drive tier recent recovery points inside the same system.
03
ioGuardian
After a failure beyond the cluster’s redundancy, such as multiple drive failures across nodes, ioGuardian pulls missing or corrupted blocks from a synchronized remote VergeOS system.
Large drives cut the cost per terabyte. The platform keeps the data on them protected.
verge.io
07 / 12
06 · Live Demo

Flash to Hard Drive and Back

DV
Dave Vincent
Dave Vincent
Technical Solutions Strategist
Driving the demo live from the VergeIO lab
TIER 1 · NVMe TIER 4 · HDD Move to hard drive Return to flash Workload VM
  • Start on flash. A running workload on the NVMe tier, under load.
  • Move it live. Change the tier, watch the API acknowledge, and watch the VM keep running.
  • Run it on hard drives. Watch read cache hits and write throughput on the hard drive tier.
  • Bring it back. Return to flash with the same command, the VM online the whole time.
verge.io
08 / 12
What Makes Us Different

Every Function. Unified Infrastructure.

Hypervisor Storage Networking Backup Disaster Recovery API API API API API VergeOS Infrastructure OS Unified infrastructure Hypervisor Storage Networking Backup DR
Five products, five upgrades, five vendors. One platform, one unified infrastructure.
  • VergeOS runs compute, storage, networking, and data protection as one unified infrastructure.
  • One install turns standard x86 servers into a complete infrastructure, including the DR site.
  • One upgrade moves the whole environment forward, so the maintenance window shrinks to hours.
  • An operating system, not a stack, means less overhead and a smaller footprint than assembled products, so the same physical servers hold more VMs.
verge.io
09 / 12
Why You Should Care

Simpler to Run, Cheaper to Own, Ready for What Is Next

IT leaders are asked to run more sites, more workloads, and more data with the same team. The platform has to give that time back.

01
Simplify Your Life
One interface covers virtual machines, storage, networking, snapshots, and failover. Your team stops moving between four consoles, four support contracts, and four upgrade calendars.
02
Lower Cost
A single license replaces the hypervisor, the array software, and the backup product. The servers stay. The savings repeat at every renewal rather than once at purchase.
03
Future Ready
Add a second site, a new tenant, or a GPU cluster for AI from the same platform. The architecture holds as the requirements change, which protects the decision you make today.
verge.io
10 / 12
Live Q&A

Ask George and Dave Anything

Type your question into the Q&A panel. We will take as many as time allows.

What if a node fails mid-move? Which workloads stay on flash? How long does a 24 TB rebuild take? Can I mix flash and hard drive nodes? Does dedup work on the hard drive tier?
GC
George Crump
George Crump
Founder, Storage Switzerland
DV
Dave Vincent
Dave Vincent
Technical Solutions Strategist
11 / 12
Thank You for Joining

Buy Flash for the Working Set and Hard Drives for the Rest

VergeOS runs flash and hard drives in one HCI cluster, moves running VMs between them on command, and licenses per server, so the savings stay in your budget.

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George CrumpFounder, Storage SwitzerlandDave VincentVergeIO
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12 / 12
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