How many chassis capacity drive slots come standard on a FlashArray//X Gen 2 chassis?

Understanding the physical chassis layout of the Pure Storage FlashArray is essential for capacity planning and hardware installation. The FlashArray//X Gen 2 (and Gen 3) utilizes a highly efficient 3U chassis design.

When looking at the front of a standard //X chassis, there are a total of 24 physical module bays. However, these bays serve fundamentally different architectural purposes:

Capacity Drive Slots: There are exactly 20 slots strictly dedicated to capacity drives (DirectFlash Modules, or DFMs). These are numbered 0 through 19 and are where the data packs are installed to provide raw storage capacity.

NVRAM Slots: The remaining 4 slots, located centrally in the chassis, are dedicated exclusively to NVRAM modules (NVB0, NVB1, NVB2, and NVB3). These provide the highly available, non-volatile write cache for the array and cannot be used for capacity expansion.

Therefore, when an Implementation Engineer is assessing the chassis for data pack expansion or module upgrades, there are exactly 20 standard capacity drive slots available before an external DirectFlash Shelf (DFS) must be added. (Note: FlashArray//XL utilizes a larger 5U chassis with 40 capacity slots, but the standard //X remains at 20).