Why is it important that storage/compute be in the same box? Isn't it desirable for there to be a "service boundary" between block storage, file storage, object storage, etc, and the consumers?
If that boundary is desirable, why would it matter where the storage resources are located? Wouldn't that be an implementation detail?
Also, latency is not an implementation detail for a lot of data-intensive workloads. We're talking differences of 1-10ms latency for Network Storage and 250-500µs for a local NVME SSD.
[1]: https://www.architecting.it/blog/what-is-a-forklift-upgrade/
* potentially compute and storage are colocated on the same chassis, providing maximum PCIe bandwidth and lower latency;
* reduced need to buy and mantain dedicated/offband storage networking solutions;
* You buy less half-filled, special purpose boxes.