The VAST Data Marketing Machine: When Tech Journalism Becomes Promotional Content

A critical examination of unverifiable claims, promotional language, and the troubling pattern of tech media publishing vendor narratives without scrutiny.

Blocks and Files published an article by Chris Mellor on December 11, 2025, titled “The Nature of the VAST Data Beast” [1]. The piece reads less like journalism and more like a press release translated into third-person prose. Mellor’s history of uncritical vendor coverage continues a troubling pattern where marketing narratives replace technical analysis. It presents VAST’s business claims and competitive positioning without verification, mathematical analysis, or critical scrutiny. This matters because storage purchasing decisions involve millions of dollars and multi-year operational commitments. When media outlets uncritically amplify vendor marketing, they fail their readers.

Let’s examine what the article claims, what can actually be verified, and what patterns emerge when marketing replaces journalism.

The Unverifiable Financial Claims

The article states VAST Data achieved “near or actual triple-digit growth rates throughout the year” and operates at “>$1 billion annual revenue run rate, possibly much higher.” It describes the company as “profitable” with margins “way past 50 percent.”

These are extraordinary claims for a storage company. Traditional enterprise storage vendors operate at 15-25% gross margins after decades of optimization. Cloud storage providers work at scale economics VAST doesn’t yet have. Where do these numbers come from?

VAST is a private company. It doesn’t publish audited financials. The article provides no attribution for these specific figures. Are they from VAST’s executives? Investment presentations? Anonymous sources? The phrase “possibly much higher” suggests speculation rather than verified reporting.

The $1.17 billion order from CoreWeave in November provides one data point. But that’s bookings, not revenue. Storage systems deploy over quarters or years. Revenue recognition follows delivery and acceptance. A large booking today becomes revenue gradually as systems ship and get operational acceptance. This is accounting 101 for enterprise technology.

Claiming “way past 50 percent” margins without showing cost structure, revenue composition, or verification methodology isn’t journalism. It’s promotional copywriting with numbers attached.

The “DASE Architecture” Marketing Language

The article describes VAST’s “DASE (Disaggregated Shared Everything) architecture” as enabling “any controller to talk to any drive.” This gets presented as unique and revolutionary.

Here’s what this actually means: VAST separates compute from storage and uses NVMe-oF networking. Protocol servers connect to storage devices over a network fabric rather than direct attachment. This architecture appeared in multiple storage systems before VAST - from Panasas’s DirectFlow in 2002 to various object storage platforms throughout the 2010s.

The term “DASE” is VAST’s marketing. It’s not an industry standard or academic concept. Calling something “Disaggregated Shared Everything” sounds impressive but describes standard disaggregated storage architecture that multiple vendors implement. The phrasing makes common architectural patterns sound proprietary and revolutionary.

Glenn Lockwood’s 2019 technical analysis provided detailed examination of VAST’s actual architecture, including limitations like Linux kernel NVMe-oF scaling constraints [2]. The Blocks and Files article presents VAST’s marketing term without the technical context or comparative analysis.

When journalists repeat vendor-created terminology without explanation or comparison, they’re doing public relations work, not technical journalism.

The “Object Storage vs Filesystem” Red Herring

The article quotes VAST positioning against “filesystem-based competitors” and claiming competitors adding parallelism to filesystems are “missing the point.” It states VAST focuses on “unstructured object data” and implies this gives them architectural advantages for AI workloads.

This is marketing misdirection. VAST DataPlatform presents POSIX filesystem interfaces (NFS, SMB) alongside S3 object APIs. The unified namespace allows both access methods to the same data. Under the hood, VAST uses object storage internals, but so do most modern scale-out file systems. The distinction between “object storage” and “filesystem” largely disappeared a decade ago when everyone adopted similar architectures.

Ceph provides block, file, and object interfaces over the same storage engine with complete source code transparency. Pure Storage offers both filesystem (FlashBlade) and object storage with documented erasure coding. NetApp runs ONTAP with both NAS and S3 access. Cloudian HyperStore delivers S3-compatible object storage with standard Reed-Solomon erasure coding and published reliability characteristics.

Claiming architectural superiority based on “object versus filesystem” in 2025 is like claiming competitive advantage because your car has “advanced circular wheel technology.” The phrasing makes standard capabilities sound differentiating.

The article presents this positioning without asking: What specific technical advantages does VAST’s approach provide? How does it compare to competitors’ actual architectures? What trade-offs exist? Those questions require technical understanding and critical analysis. The article provides neither.

The “AI OS” Vision and Future-Talk

VAST describes building an “AI OS” with layers called DataSpace, DataBase, DataStore, DataEngine, AgentEngine, and InsightEngine. The article presents this as strategic vision and innovative thinking.

These are product roadmap announcements dressed up with architectural terminology. Every storage vendor pitches AI integration. NetApp has AIOps in ONTAP. Pure has Evergreen//Forever and Pure1 with predictive analytics. Dell has CloudIQ. IBM has Storage Insights. Everyone claims AI-driven management because “AI” tests well in customer surveys.

What makes VAST’s “AI OS” different? The article doesn’t explain. Are these shipping products? Prototypes? PowerPoint architecture? What actual capabilities do customers get today versus what’s future roadmap? How do these compare to competitors’ AI integration?

Journalism requires distinguishing between: verified capabilities available now, announced features with concrete timelines, and aspirational vision that may or may not materialize. The article treats VAST’s roadmap terminology as accomplished fact rather than future promises.

When VAST acquired Red Stapler in June 2024, they said this would accelerate their DataBase platform. That’s nine months ago. What shipped? What’s still in development? What’s just marketing vision? The article doesn’t ask.

The Reliability Numbers Without Math

Our earlier analysis examined VAST’s erasure coding architecture in detail [3]. The core issues: VAST claims 146+4 erasure coding with 4-failure tolerance and 44 million year MTTDL. These are extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence.

Microsoft Azure uses locality codes (LRC) and explicitly states their (12+2+2) configuration “is not Maximum Distance Separable and therefore cannot tolerate arbitrary 4 failures” [4]. They document the trade-off: locality optimization means certain 4-failure combinations cause data loss. Microsoft publishes this limitation openly.

VAST claims 4-failure tolerance with 146+4 codes while maintaining locality optimization for efficient rebuilds. The mathematics of achieving both simultaneously - especially at 97.3% efficiency (2.74% overhead) - requires novel algorithmic approaches. VAST calls this “Locally Decodable Erasure Codes” (LDEC), a proprietary implementation without published source code or detailed mathematical specification.

Ceph uses standard Reed-Solomon erasure coding with complete source code, extensive documentation, and implementations validated at CERN’s multi-exabyte scale. A 12+4 configuration provides verifiable 4-failure tolerance with 33% overhead. Cloudian HyperStore operates similarly with documented erasure coding parameters and published reliability characteristics. AWS S3 uses proprietary erasure coding but employs well-understood algorithms that can be theoretically verified.

VAST uses proprietary implementations of novel code families. Can they achieve what they claim? Perhaps. Can anyone verify independently? No. Mellor’s article mentions none of this complexity. It presents VAST’s claims as verified fact rather than unaudited assertions about proprietary algorithms.

The 44 million year MTTDL gets stated without methodology, assumptions, or comparative context. Open source systems like Ceph publish their erasure coding parameters, rebuild algorithms, and complete source code - enabling operators to calculate MTTDL for their specific configurations using standard reliability formulas. This transparency allows verification and adjustment based on actual deployment characteristics. VAST provides a number without showing the work.

When extraordinary reliability claims appear without mathematical substantiation, journalists should ask questions, not repeat marketing copy.

The Pattern: Promotional Content Masquerading as Journalism

The Blocks and Files article exhibits every hallmark of promotional content:

No critical analysis. Every claim gets presented as fact. No skeptical questions. No verification attempts. No comparative context from competitors.

Unchallenged executive quotes. VAST’s positioning gets repeated verbatim. Competitors are “missing the point” without explanation of why or comparison of actual technical approaches.

Future roadmap treated as current capability. The “AI OS” vision gets presented as strategy and innovation rather than undelivered promises.

Marketing terminology adopted without definition. “DASE architecture” and “LDEC” get used as though they’re standard industry terms rather than vendor-created branding.

Unverifiable financial claims without attribution. Margins “way past 50 percent” and revenue “possibly much higher” than $1B appear without sources or verification methodology.

Competitive dismissal without technical substance. Filesystem-based competitors “miss the point” but the article never explains what point they’re missing or examines actual architectural differences.

This isn’t journalism. This is what happens when vendors get to tell their story without scrutiny and media outlets publish it because controversy and technical depth require effort.

What Real Analysis Looks Like

Evaluating storage systems requires examining: quantifiable performance with workload specifics, reliability mathematics with verifiable calculations, operational complexity with failure scenario analysis, cost models with total cost of ownership breakdowns, competitive positioning with architectural trade-off comparisons, implementation verification through source code or independent testing, and migration complexity with documented procedures.

The Blocks and Files article provides: executive quotes, marketing terminology, unverifiable financial claims, future roadmap promises, and competitive dismissal without technical substance.

Glenn Lockwood’s 2019 analysis showed what technical journalism looks like [2]. He examined VAST’s architecture, identified specific scaling bottlenecks, questioned locality code assumptions, and provided comparative context. Blocks and Files in 2025 demonstrates what happens when technical journalism gets replaced by promotional content.

The Vendor Neutrality Test

Apply the same scrutiny to every vendor’s claims. When Pure Storage claims NVMe performance advantages, examine the specific hardware, software versions, and workload patterns. When NetApp discusses hybrid cloud integration, understand what’s automated versus what requires manual processes. When Cloudian touts S3 compatibility, verify which API features are supported and which have limitations.

VAST deserves identical treatment. Their erasure coding claims need mathematical verification. Their operational complexity needs honest assessment. Their competitive positioning needs comparative analysis. Their future roadmap needs separation from current capabilities.

The Blocks and Files article fails this test completely. It amplifies VAST’s marketing without applying any critical lens. This would be problematic for any vendor. It’s particularly troubling for a company making extraordinary technical claims about proprietary algorithms that cannot be independently verified.

What Customers Actually Need

Storage purchasing decisions involve understanding: real-world performance under your workloads, failure modes and degraded operation behavior, operational complexity and required expertise, total cost including hidden costs like training and support, vendor dependency and lock-in risks, migration paths and data extraction procedures, and competitive alternatives with honest trade-off analysis.

Marketing content optimizes for: making everything sound revolutionary, hiding complexity and trade-offs, dismissing competitors without technical substance, emphasizing future roadmap over current limitations, and using terminology that sounds impressive without explaining what it means.

The Blocks and Files article reads like marketing content. It provides almost nothing customers need for informed decisions. This is the fundamental failure of promotional journalism in technical fields.

The Path Forward

VAST has built impressive technology addressing real problems at scale. Their disaggregated architecture provides flexibility. Their focus on SCM buffering enables low-latency writes. Their work on wide-stripe erasure coding tackles efficiency at petabyte scales. The CoreWeave deal demonstrates real customer value for specific use cases.

But impressive technology deserves honest analysis, not uncritical amplification. When journalists present vendor claims as verified facts, they do customers a disservice. When they adopt marketing terminology without explanation, they confuse rather than inform. When they ignore technical complexity and competitive alternatives, they fail their basic function.

Storage technology is complex enough without media outlets adding promotional noise. Customers need journalism that: verifies claims through testing or expert analysis, provides comparative context from multiple vendors, examines trade-offs honestly including limitations, distinguishes current capabilities from future promises, explains technical concepts rather than repeating marketing terms, and asks skeptical questions when claims seem extraordinary.

The Blocks and Files article provides none of this. It’s a disappointing example of how technical media becomes vendor amplification when critical analysis gets replaced by promotional convenience.

VAST’s technology should be evaluated on verifiable technical merits, not marketing narratives. Every vendor deserves the same treatment: mathematical verification of reliability claims, operational analysis including failure scenarios, honest assessment of complexity and expertise requirements, and comparative context from alternatives.

That’s what StorageMath does for every vendor, every claim, every time. Because customers making million-dollar decisions deserve better than repackaged press releases.

References

[1] Blocks and Files, “The Nature of the VAST Data Beast,” December 11, 2025. https://blocksandfiles.com/2025/12/11/the-nature-of-the-vast-data-beast/

[2] Lockwood, G. (2019). “VAST Data’s Storage System Architecture,” https://blog.glennklockwood.com/2019/02/vast-datas-storage-system-architecture.html

[3] StorageMath, “Understanding VAST Data’s Erasure Coding Architecture,” https://storagemath.com/posts/vast-data-erasure-coding/

[4] Huang, C., et al. (2012). “Erasure Coding in Windows Azure Storage,” USENIX ATC. https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/atc12/atc12-final181_0.pdf

[5] Ceph, “Erasure Code Documentation,” https://docs.ceph.com/en/latest/rados/operations/erasure-code/

StorageMath analyzes all vendors with equal scrutiny. Marketing claims require verification. Promotional content masquerading as journalism serves no one except vendors. Customers deserve better.