We compared NetApp AFF and Dell PowerStore based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
NetApp AFF impresses users with exceptional performance, customer service, competitive pricing, and positive ROI, but needs improvements in integration and scalability. Dell PowerStore stands out for storage performance, customer service, pricing, and positive ROI, while users suggest enhancements in ease of use and performance optimization.
Features: NetApp AFF is highly regarded for its exceptional performance, scalability, efficient data management, high availability, and seamless integration. Dell PowerStore, on the other hand, is praised for its ease of use, intuitive interface, robust security features, comprehensive support services, and workload performance optimization.
Pricing and ROI: The setup cost of NetApp AFF is described as straightforward and not difficult for users, while Dell PowerStore is reported to have a relatively low setup cost, making it convenient for users. Users have had positive experiences with the licensing process of both products, finding it smooth and user-friendly., The ROI from NetApp AFF was impressive, with increased productivity, efficiency, and improved data storage capabilities. Users praised its reliability and performance. On the other hand, Dell PowerStore offered flexibility, scalability, and advanced features, delivering tangible benefits and meeting expectations.
Room for Improvement: NetApp AFF would benefit from improvements in performance optimization, software functionality, and scalability for larger deployments. Users also mention the need for a more intuitive and user-friendly interface. Dell PowerStore could benefit from enhancements in ease of use, interface simplicity, and performance optimization. Users desire a more intuitive and efficient interface when navigating the system, with optimized speed and responsiveness for handling large amounts of data. Overall, improvements should focus on enhancing user experience and maximizing system performance.
Deployment and customer support: The user reviews indicate that the duration required for establishing a new tech solution can vary greatly for both NetApp AFF and Dell PowerStore. However, there is a difference in terms of the context in which users use the terms "deployment" and "setup." Some users of NetApp AFF spend three months on deployment and an additional week on setup, while others required only a week for both phases. On the other hand, some Dell PowerStore users reported spending three months on deployment, while others needed a week for setup. It is important to consider the overall timeframes mentioned when evaluating the user reviews for both products., Users have reported highly positive experiences with the customer service and support of both NetApp AFF and Dell PowerStore. NetApp AFF is praised for its knowledgeable and attentive support team, while Dell PowerStore is commended for its prompt and efficient assistance. Both companies demonstrate professionalism and address queries effectively.
The summary above is based on 82 interviews we conducted recently with NetApp AFF and Dell PowerStore users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"What I like most about this solution, is the speed, resiliency and scalability."
"Because of the encryption, we have different storage and the encryption can go over both."
"The most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray are the management view of the solutions, ease of provision, and deprovision, it is fantastic."
"The predictive performance analytics are good."
"It is all-flash. This makes it a lot faster than the rest of what we have, as it is able to drive high I/O loads, which is big for us."
"The deduplication and compression meet all of our system requirements."
"The mobile app is very helpful."
"The amount of throughput that we're getting is really nice."
"Gives us flexibility, performance, and ease of use. It also has some very good compression capabilities. We were looking for a solution that was easy to install in our VMware environment, that was flexible. PowerStore X is a type of a VMware cluster that you install inside your environment. If you have a VMware environment, like we have in production, it's easy to install and use."
"There is no complicated configuration for queries and calls. You just create a model and go."
"The solution is very easy to implement."
"A particularly valuable feature is its simplicity."
"The solution's technical support is excellent. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"Migrations are very easy and fast."
"The compression is excellent."
"Reliable, with comprehensive features and a well-established support base."
"It has improved performance for our enterprise applications, data analytics, and VMs. These improvements are a result of all-flash, throughput, reliability, compression, etc."
"The benefits of being on AFF are the phenomenal speed at which we're able to ingest data and index it, and the IOPS."
"I think it is a very stable product."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the deduplication and the ability to move data to different clouds."
"The tool has lowered latency."
"We just migrated two petabytes of data storage from IBM over to NetApp All Flash. Some of the performance improvement that we've seen is 100 times I/O and microsecond latency."
"One of the main features that we love about the system is the ability to create snapshots. NetApp makes a lot of snapshots in a short space of time. Also, the speed of data recovery with NetApp, at the time we need it, is an important feature that we love."
"The performance is the most valuable feature."
"There are scenarios with very specific functionality around VMware integration particularly to do with the way we'd like to manage LUNs in VMware. The tools are pretty good but there's room for improvement there."
"I would like the ability to swap out the network adapters into it. So, without taking out the whole controller, I would like to be able to swap adapters. This would make things easier."
"I would like to have an easy way to determine the cost per VM so that I can present a solution to our customers."
"The setup needs to be improved the most. They can do a little more with the user interface, but the setup is what I would like to see made a bit easier."
"Its price needs improvement. Its price is almost double than any other flash storage solution."
"The price of the solution can improve."
"I want to learn more about command line usage which I have not explored much yet. However, there are many automated solutions for repetitive tasks. I would like to see additional features like performance monitoring, configuring of alerts, and the customization of alert thresholds in the next release."
"We haven't seen ROI yet."
"It's also only supported with a limited amount of switches."
"The customer service and support are bad."
"The UI should be a little more user-friendly to manage."
"We are looking for the Dell PowerStore to become more mature to maximize our use cases."
"The setup process could be improved. We had some issues regarding configuration and the time it took to do things. It wasn't specifically the people we worked with, but more the process and how it's done. They can work on that."
"Could be improved by including a synchronizing feature for the file systems."
"I would like to see a Snapshot feature. Currently, it is unable to occupy the capacity."
"When you create a case on Dell's support website, you don't always get someone who is experienced in the kind of systems you need help with...making it an area where Dell's support team needs to make improvements."
"We installed NetSender to test it. I think it could be a good solution. It is very small now, but will probably become bigger in the next few months to years."
"The cost of this solution should be reduced."
"The procurement process could be improved. It takes a long time for us to receive stuff. The product is good. It's not the product, it's just that it takes forever to get it. It's not our reseller's problem; it's usually held up at NetApp."
"The system is pretty stable but most of the ONTAP versions are not really stable. There have been multiple bugs in different ONTAP versions."
"The initial setup was a little complex, because we weren't very knowledgeable in the NetApp at the time. We were using a third-party, and they didn't have a lot of technical individuals, so it took a while to get it out."
"We would like to have NVMe on FabricPool working because it broke our backups. We enabled FabricPool to do the tiering from our AFFs to our Webscale but it sort of broke our Cobalt backups."
"I would like them to roll in global monitoring instead of having to buy another product for it."
"It would be great if they had a single pane of glass or a single dashboard where all the NetApp ecosystem storages could be viewed and monitored simply. That would help my Operations."
Dell PowerStore is ranked 1st in All-Flash Storage with 46 reviews while NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 280 reviews. Dell PowerStore is rated 8.6, while NetApp AFF is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of Dell PowerStore writes "It has a very strong NAS that can support a lot of big, heavy environments". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp AFF writes "Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency". Dell PowerStore is most compared with Dell Unity XT, IBM FlashSystem, Dell PowerMax NVMe, HPE Nimble Storage and Huawei OceanStor Dorado, whereas NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell Unity XT, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, VMware vSAN, NetApp FAS Series and VAST Data. See our Dell PowerStore 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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