We performed a comparison between NetApp AFF and VNX [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Pure Storage and others in All-Flash Storage."Very stable; no worries about how much it can handle."
"The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is the complete set of functions it provides."
"The most valuable features are the replication of data and the continuous snapshot that we can take from the disc."
"The most valuable feature is how it simplifies the management of the SAN."
"It's easy to use, and the maintenance upgrades to get free controllers work really well."
"The most valuable feature is test performance. It helps us store large amounts of data along with providing us faster retrieval of data."
"Technical support is good."
"Access speed and power consumption are most valuable."
"AFF has opened our eyes in a different light of how storage value works. In the past, we looked at it more as just a container where we could just dump our customer dBms and let the customers use it in terms of efficiency. Today, to be able to replicate that data to a different location, use that data to recover your environment or be able to have the flexibility with the solution and data. These are things which piqued our interest. It's something that we're willing to provide as a solution to our customers."
"NetApp AFF is based on Unix, which makes it secure."
"We are using the AQoS operating system, which allows us to get a lot more out of our AFF systems."
"AFF works well for VMware storage."
"The most valuable features are the low latency and high-performance."
"It has improved performance for our enterprise applications, data analytics, and VMs. These improvements are a result of all-flash, throughput, reliability, compression, etc."
"It is easy to manage data through the GUI by using Active IQ and the unified manager."
"The most valuable features of AFF are its speed and the responsive support from NetApp."
"It is very stable even during multiple power failures."
"FAST (auto-tiering): Doesn't require configuration and is managed by the array itself."
"Integration with VMware"
"The implementation of both block and file system storage in a single GUI provides is better situated than most other storages."
"One of the best features of the VNX is the ability to combine drives of different types into a virtual Storage Pool. By combining small but fast flash drives, SAS drives, and high-capacity but slower NL-SAS drives, the VNX can intelligently move data to the different tiers of storage based on usage."
"It is very stable, even during multiple power failures."
"The replication feature provides another functionality to protect your data."
"I really value deduplication and compression to save space."
"Some services could be inserted directly into the SAN, so Pure Storage could complete with the HyperFlex."
"The support for NFS protocols right out-of-the-box need improvement. I'm used to other storage vendors who have NFS support right out-of-the-box, and Pure Storage doesn't seem to have anything."
"I had to contact customer support when a drive failed as I was doing a couple of OS upgrades."
"It would be nice to have a better view of the allocated capacity on their Platform as a Service solution because we have to do some manual calculations to understand how much we are going to pay every month to use the storage that is allocated."
"From a scalability perspective, it is a very small storage solution, so it's not very expandable."
"Had some issues with Purity not being entirely compatible with VMware ESXi."
"We do have an issue with the vCenter integration. Pure Storage says it has a lot of free space, but vCenter says its completely full. This is because their dedupes are saved as space, but Vcenter still detects the disk as completely full. So, we do have an issue with that."
"I would rate this solution an eight. To make it a ten it would have to be a little cheaper."
"We don't have many issues related to the appliance itself. In terms of the OS, we do get some hiccups here and there."
"In the current atmosphere, private cloud is improving. NetApp AFF needs to provide flexibility in terms of hardware and capital expense."
"Sometimes, NetApp support could be better. When the customers escalate, it can feel like everything's starting from scratch. These are rare cases. I'm not directly involved in support, but that's what I hear when something doesn't work."
"There are some bugs with the solution which need to be fixed."
"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."
"We have been seeing some challenges around the application layer implementation. We are having some teething problems now with the cooperation between the application layer and backups to things, like SnapCenter. This may be a question of product maturity."
"Customer service is one area of the product line where I would love to see improvement. I have had several vendor experiences with NetApp where I faced challenges in the initial call trying to navigate the requirements of the service level expectation. Their response could be better improved. However, the final result is great. It is just the initial support level where improvement would help to effectively solve problems."
"I don't work on the technical side of things, so it's hard for me to highlight areas of improvement, but maybe the price could be a little better."
"Poor connection to FC."
"The management software used for the VNX is Unicenter. While it is an improvement over Navicenter, used in older EMC SANs, it still feels outdated in comparison to other SAN management software."
"The administrative console (Navisphere/Unisphere) needs some improvement, especially on their Java-based GUI. The updated version of Java is not compatible."
"If the VNX had embedded encryption, that would be great."
"There is an easy replication process between distinct data centers via VPLEX and/or RPA. But I hope in the future that EMC/Dell could replicate this with other types of storage."
"VNX can improve by offering flexible upgrade options. It's not possible to add a single HDD to a current array and there are fixed rules to make upgrades."
"There is no easy way to defrag a RAID group. It would be nice to be able to reduce the size of a storage pool if the storage is not needed anymore."
"Intel Xeon processors with under 2 GHz processing speeds could be replaced with more recent ones."
Earn 20 points
NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 280 reviews while VNX [EOL] doesn't meet the minimum requirements to be ranked in All-Flash Storage. NetApp AFF is rated 9.0, while VNX [EOL] is rated 8.0. 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 VNX [EOL] writes "The auto-tiering helps in the speed of data access". NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell Unity XT, Dell PowerStore, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, VMware vSAN and NetApp FAS Series, whereas VNX [EOL] is most compared with .
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