We performed a comparison between Pure Storage FlashArray and Pure Storage FlashBlade based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Pure Storage FlashBlade came out ahead of Pure Storage FlashArray. Although both products are easy to deploy, with good support, and have brought positive ROI, our reviewers found Pure Storage FlashArray more expensive than its competitors and with more areas that need improvement.
"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"Pure has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"The deduplication and compression rates are beyond impressive."
"It's actually very stable"
"It is an easy to use product for all of my team members."
"This is the best all-flash storage array on the market."
"I like FlashArray's ActiveCluster as well as its snapshot and cloning capabilities."
"The job of support for the storage engineers dramatically changed. We know more quickly the automation of the provisioning. We can now focus on things that bring more value to the company than just managing storage."
"The stability is very good. I've done destructive testing on it and never had any type of storage outages from it."
"The console is simple to use. It has good performance. It is easy to install, understand, and manage, with a good ratio of deduplication and compression. It is doing its job."
"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."
"The initial setup was straightforward. If you know how to plug in power and network you're pretty much qualified. They were on site to configure the network, the box to fit into our network architecture. Other than that, we self-managed from there."
"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."
"I would rate this solution an eight plus. It has has good flexibility and stability, it's easy to manage and the response time is good."
"It's very easy-to-use."
"The most valuable features include the ease of implementation, ease of use and the speed that you can do backup and recovery on."
"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade is user-friendly. It's replication feature is great because it has active replication and active DR. That's the beauty of the product. It's a perfect solution for block storage."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"We need better data deduplication."
"It is on the expensive side."
"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 software layer has to improve."
"Just some nit picky stuff, like allowing servers and volumes to be grouped. Therefore, it would easier to work with them in the GUI."
"In the next release of this solution, we would like to see automated copy data management for SQL Server."
"We understand that they're thinking about it, but one of the things that would be nice is if they added some basic file-level capabilities to the platform. The idea is that they would run a basic NFS or CIF share from the controllers. FlashBlade is the powerhouse for File and Object storage, but if you don't need all that power, a lightweight file function would make FlashArrays more versatile."
"Storage. There could be better storage."
"In the next release, I would like to see file-level encryption."
"I would like to see support for NVMe, end-to-end."
"Beyond a certain amount of petabytes, you have to have a separate system. Basically, it's not infinitely scalable."
"I would like a feature to integrate with external or cloud solutions. For example, if I want to use this storage for a backup from the cloud, I want to have integration with the cloud vendors, such as Microsoft, Oracles, or Amazon. It could be available as an API to allow seamless integration. Additionally, the solution could improve by having native integration with a cloud provider, such as VMware or Microsoft, this would reduce the need to use third-party solutions to complete the task."
"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."
"Commvault has mainly driven the Analytics, providing data and reports. However, the product has room for improvement, especially regarding storage analytics. Upgrading firmware has caused issues, requiring feature disabling to revert to traditional backups. The firmware upgrades sometimes affect Commvault backups."
"It usually comes down to just what you hit and the value you're getting when you spend the money and license the products. I would always go, "If you want to make things better, lower your price and make your licensing simpler." There's always an opportunity around that."
"We haven't been able to use much of the cloud area of Pure Storage. We have a storage server and it would be better if it could integrate with other cloud features of this solution."
"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."
"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."
"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."
"The solution is expensive."
Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 174 reviews while Pure Storage FlashBlade is ranked 21st in All-Flash Storage with 31 reviews. Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.2, while Pure Storage FlashBlade is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pure Storage FlashBlade writes "A high-performing and scalable solution that improves data performance for S3 workloads". Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and VAST Data, whereas Pure Storage FlashBlade is most compared with Dell PowerScale (Isilon), VAST Data, MinIO, Red Hat Ceph Storage and Dell ECS. See our Pure Storage FlashArray vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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.
