Get a Customized Analysis of Your NAS Environment to Maximize Tiering Savings and Reclaim Primary Storage Capacity — Without Vendor Lock-In
Procuring flash storage in 2026 is getting harder and more expensive. Gartner estimates a 130% increase in combined DRAM and SSD prices by the end of 2026, and enterprise SSD prices rose 53–58% quarter-over-quarter in Q1 2026 alone. Meanwhile, 70% of enterprise unstructured data is inactive and cold — yet remains on expensive primary flash storage, consuming capacity that should be reserved for high-priority workloads and AI investments.
The Komprise Flash Stretch Assessment is a customized analysis of your enterprise NAS and cloud file storage environment that identifies how to free up 70%+ of primary capacity. Unlike storage-vendor tiering solutions, Komprise uses open standards so there are no rehydration penalties and no vendor lock-in when switching storage destinations.
The Flash Stretch Assessment is available to enterprise IT infrastructure teams storing at least 500TB. Komprise analyzes your environment and provides a report showing:
- Data growth and usage across multi-vendor NAS and cloud storage
- How much primary capacity you can free up for hot data and AI workloads
- Which data is cold and ready to tier, by type, age, and usage
- How much ROT (redundant, obsolete, and trivial) data can be purged
- Ideal tiering policy by department or use case to ensure business alignment
- Modeled savings across multiple cloud and object storage destinations so you can choose the best option
- Estimated savings from eliminating storage-tiering rehydration penalties
- Backup cost savings from shrinking the entire primary file footprint using Komprise Intelligent Tiering
As IT seeks to fit more data into existing storage capacity given surging costs, they need to be careful not to unwittingly commit to undesirable limitations. The Komprise assessment helps enterprises quantify how to optimize and squeeze more from current storage through standards-based tiering to maximize savings without lock-in.
— Randy Hopkins, VP of Global Systems Engineering, Komprise
Learn more about Komprise Flash Stretch and how to request your assessment.
Flash Stretch FAQs:
What is the Komprise Flash Stretch Assessment and what does it provide?
The Komprise Flash Stretch Assessment is an analytics-driven analysis of your enterprise NAS and cloud file storage environment. After pre-qualification for organizations storing at least 500TB, Komprise conducts the analysis and delivers a customized report showing how much primary capacity you can free up (typically 70%+), which data is cold and ready to tier by file type and age, department-level tiering policy recommendations, modeled savings across cloud and object storage destinations, backup reduction opportunities, and ROT data that can be safely deleted. The assessment is designed to help IT teams respond to rising flash and SSD costs without purchasing additional primary storage.
How does Komprise Flash Stretch avoid vendor lock-in when tiering data?
Most storage-vendor tiering solutions use proprietary stubs or formats that create rehydration penalties, forcing organizations to repurchase the original vendor’s hardware or pay high fees to retrieve data when switching providers. Komprise uses its patented [Transparent Move Technology (TMT)](https://www.komprise.com/product/transparent-move-technology/), which moves data using open standards. Users and applications continue accessing tiered data transparently with no workflow disruption, and organizations retain full freedom to choose or switch cloud and object storage destinations at any time with no lock-in costs.
Why does cold data on primary flash storage matter for enterprise AI initiatives?
AI and GenAI workloads require high-performance, high-capacity primary storage for active training data, inference pipelines, and fast retrieval. When 70% or more of primary flash is occupied by inactive cold unstructured data, including old project files, archived research, logs, and stale backups. It crowds out the capacity needed for high-priority AI investments. Flash Stretch reclaims that premium storage capacity by intelligently tiering cold data to low-cost alternatives, preserving high-performance flash for the workloads that genuinely need it. Komprise also enriches metadata during the tiering process, building a Global Metadatabase that accelerates AI data curation and governed ingestion for model workflows.
How much can the Flash Stretch Assessment save, and who qualifies?
At current market prices, Komprise Flash Stretch has identified potential savings of $350,000 or more per petabyte of flash storage, through freed primary capacity, avoided hardware purchases, reduced backup scope, and eliminated rehydration penalties. Pfizer, for example, saved 75% of its primary storage footprint, backup, and DR costs using the Komprise approach. The assessment is available immediately to enterprise IT infrastructure teams storing at least 500TB.
Request your assessment at komprise.com/flash-stretch.
How is Intelligent Tiering different from storage vendor tiering or manual NAS tiering?
Storage vendor tiering is typically limited to a single vendor’s hardware ecosystem, uses proprietary data formats that incur rehydration costs when switching, and lacks the analytics depth to provide department-level policy recommendations. Manual approaches cannot scale across billions of files, multiple NAS vendors, and hybrid cloud environments. Komprise Intelligent Tiering is storage-agnostic. It analyzes and tiers data across multi-vendor NAS and cloud platforms simultaneously, models savings comparisons across multiple destination options, and surfaces ROT data and backup savings that vendor-based tiering tools do not address. Unlike point tools, Komprise also upgrades to a full Intelligent Data Management platform, so the assessment is the entry point to ongoing lifecycle management, AI data readiness, and compliance automation.