We performed a comparison between NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) came out ahead of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. The two solutions have similar deployment difficulty, price range, and support quality, but NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays has fewer valuable features, according to its users.
"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"Pure has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"We use the NFS and SIP protocols a lot. The NFS is the most valuable feature."
"The benefits of being on AFF are the phenomenal speed at which we're able to ingest data and index it, and the IOPS."
"Its top-tier performance ranks as the most valuable aspect."
"This solution has reduced our data center costs because when we went from the 8000 and 3200 series that took us from 20 racks of storage down to two."
"It's pretty scalable. It can scale up to 24 nodes."
"Our architecture has historically relied on RDMs, so AFF has enabled us to easily migrate from our old EMC PowerMax to the new NetApp. It's been pretty smooth. We have a lot of SAP servers in our environment, so performance is critical for us."
"The most valuable feature is the support. If we have any issues, we can call into NetApp and their support is really good."
"It also helps to accelerate databases in our environment. First of all, there is the reliability of things staying online and the small response time as well, from the MetroCluster, for all of the data that we're serving; and the applications are talking to the MetroCluster. It provides a very fast response time."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to set a specific margin of performance to a specific workload."
"This storage solution is both stable and scalable, and it works for our needs."
"It provides multi-protocol, which is what gives the edge when it comes to big lineage PC workloads."
"The management of it is very simple. that is the most valuable feature."
"Rapid deployment, easy integration management and cloning of areas."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"Its performance is most valuable. This solution is much faster than other as well as older storage solutions. The performance of the system is very good. We are getting 50 times better experience than the older storages. We are using AFF 300. It also has native cloud integration and most of the features."
"We use it for our VDI environment, and have not had any complaints with it."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"The software layer has to improve."
"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."
"It is on the expensive side."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"There is room for improvement with the user interface. There are a few things that cannot be done in the GUI. We do a lot of things through the CLI, but that's grown out of a lack of ability to do them in the GUI. An example is QTrees. You can manage them within the GUI, but the GUI is missing a few options."
"They should make these features a little more affordable."
"There is room for improvement in terms of support. I have noticed that if I sometimes call their customer care for a particular issue, they will give me another number and ask me to call that other team. It would be better if they could do a warm transfer. That would save customers time from calling all the numbers again and speaking to another team."
"When it comes to the connectivity on the back end, where the hardware is concerned—the cabling and the like—it could also be simplified to ease the communication between the nodes and between the other components of the infrastructure. I still find that a little bit complicated."
"I come tech support with difficulty because I installed NetApp for many years I know what to expect when I call. When I don't get their support tech that I'm expecting and I'm trying to get to the right one, it can get very frustrating for me personally, trying to all-flash push my way into the right person. NetApp has the right people, it's just a matter of getting to them."
"You have a limit in terms of how much you can expand storage. It sounds like a lot. However, over the years, as you grow, it may be smaller than you think."
"We currently use some thin provisioning for our planning system, but we will probably move away from thin provisioning because our Solaris planning system actually has some issues with the thin provisioning and way Solaris handles it, since Solaris uses a ZFS file system. The ZFS file system doesn't like the thin provisioning changing things and it brings systems down, which is bad."
"The bad part about having scalability is the expense. It is currently extremely expensive, to be able to scale so fast on flash."
"The dashboard could be simplified."
"It was difficult to implement and lacks some additional features that would be useful, but as a solution fits a particular need for our organization."
"A little more manageability, a simpler management interface. It's not necessarily that it's way overly complex. It's just that it's not as easy as the FAS series."
"I would like to shrink it more, if we can. The smaller, the better."
"As far as the manageability, being able to port between the two and have to do less training in-house from a customer point of view, that would be the part to improve."
"I would like to have the ability to replicate data between All Flash and other NetApp storage systems."
"We need a center related to NetApp in Egypt so that we can deal with them directly."
"The solution's technical support is not as good as it is supposed to be since you have to push them to get support."
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NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 281 reviews while NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is ranked 23rd in All-Flash Storage with 38 reviews. NetApp AFF is rated 9.0, while NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of NetApp AFF writes "Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays writes "A storage solution that offers great stability, resilience, and support". NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Pure Storage FlashArray and VMware vSAN, whereas NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Huawei OceanStor Dorado, HPE Primera and IBM FlashSystem. See our NetApp AFF vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays report.
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We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
