We performed a comparison between Dell PowerMax NVMe and NetApp AFF based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."
"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."
"The solution is scalable."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"The optimization of the cache memory of each engine and the use of persistent memory."
"This platform is reliable in supporting our data availability. We now have a higher performing platform and have been able to consolidate our workloads into one single platform."
"Dell PowerMax NVMe has good scalability and performance."
"Dell PowerMax NVMe's tech support is good."
"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerMax NVMe is its replication feature."
"I would rate my experience with the initial setup a nine out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy."
"The performance is very good on our servers. It's superior. And the QoS capabilities for providing work congestion protection are also important because about 99 percent of our servers are production servers."
"We use ESRS for our call-home, and a lot of times, Dell EMC will respond to the issue before we even know it."
"We have had issues before on our infrastructure where 20 to 30 percent of the people would come to us pointing the finger at the storage technology or storage back-end. That is now virtually zero."
"Switching to AFF has improved the performance of a lot of our virtual machines in a VMware environment. The number of support tickets that we receive has fallen to almost zero because of this, so it's been a real help for our virtual server support team."
"NetApp AFF's flash technology offers great performance. This feature has been my go-to for managing data and ensuring speed and reliability."
"The cloning and snapshot features are the most valuable. With snapshot backup, we can clone a big database in minutes. We take a lot of snapshots for clients in different environments."
"It has a good interface. Its configuration and flexibility are also good."
"The in-line dedupe, and the compaction saves us a lot of space because most of our AFFs house VMware VMDK files."
"Things that have been really useful, of course, are the clustering features and being able to stay online during failovers and code upgrades; and just being able to seamlessly do all sorts of movement of data without having to disrupt end-users' ability to get to those files. And we can take advantage of new shelves, new hardware, upgrade in place. It's kind of magic when it comes to doing those sorts of things."
"The tool's most valuable feature is efficiency."
"We need better data deduplication."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"I would like to see continued visibility and analytics in the platform."
"The technical support is lacking. We are working with Dell EMC to get some better understanding of this."
"I would like them to continue improving the management tools and continue moving towards a RESTful API versus CLI."
"We would like more documentation, a guide to the features of the PowerMax."
"The installation of equipment needed support's help."
"I would like the scalability to improve, as it requires additional footprints."
"If you go to Pure or you go to NetApp, they deliver in one month. If you go to Dell or HP, they will take up to six months for delivery. This is not a business model for today."
"Firmware updates are a bit painful because you have to involve their support, as opposed to having the ability to do it yourself."
"Their backup software could be improved."
"In terms of what needs improvement, I would like to see more consistency with the UI. It seems to change every few versions. The menus can be in a completely different place."
"Another issue is that for smaller customers, NetApp doesn't have enough disk sizes. You begin with a 980-gigabyte disk and the next size is 3.8 terabytes. There aren't any disk sizes in between. Competitors have more choices in disk sizes."
"The upgrade process could be a lot quicker, but it's still good as it is. The failovers and things like that are harder than expected."
"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."
"Stability could be improved."
"Cleaning up false positives on alerts. We get a lot of those."
"To be more competitive in the industry, they can develop deduplication, compression, and smarter features in the same array instead of all-flash."
Dell PowerMax NVMe is ranked 8th in All-Flash Storage with 66 reviews while NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 281 reviews. Dell PowerMax NVMe is rated 8.8, while NetApp AFF is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of Dell PowerMax NVMe writes "Simplified storage provisioning for us, enabling us to assign any volumes in two to three minutes". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp AFF writes "Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency". Dell PowerMax NVMe is most compared with Dell PowerStore, IBM FlashSystem, Dell Unity XT, Pure Storage FlashArray and Dell VMAX All Flash, whereas NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Pure Storage FlashArray and VMware vSAN. See our Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. NetApp AFF report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors and best NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays vendors.
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