We performed a comparison between Dell XtremIO 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."Simplicity and reliability are the most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray."
"The first year, we started out with one or five terabytes and it took what was 20 terabytes of storage down to less than one terabyte."
"It is an SSD array that has awesome performance, low submillisecond latency, and does what it is supposed to do. It just works, which is difficult for things to do anymore."
"There was a dramatic improvement in operating costs just as a result of the environmentals and space, let alone the cost of the unit itself."
"This solution is very scalable."
"Pure gives us better compression, it's easier to manage, a lot less hands-on."
"I like FlashArray's ActiveCluster as well as its snapshot and cloning capabilities."
"The management features are well organized and they have a very good dashboard."
"XtremIO’s capability to run any workload without much in the way of design considerations makes this very easy to use and size."
"Initially, we faced numerous issues with our analytical systems. However, we saw performance improvement after the implementation of the solution."
"It is great for applications like Microsoft Exchange, ERP, SQL and VDI; basically saved the VDI buy-in from users, as now performance was seamless in comparison to a physical PC."
"The most valuable features are that it is fast and reliable."
"Ease of management, aside from the serious performance, is the best feature."
"The feature I like most about Dell Xtremio is its hardware quality compared to other vendors. It's clear they're continuously improving their research and development."
"The solution's most valuable features are the inline data reduction and deduplication."
"XtremIO is very stable."
"We use the NFS and SIP protocols a lot. The NFS is the most valuable feature."
"It is a stable solution."
"The most valuable features are the low latency and high-performance."
"The speed is great. That's probably number one in terms of features we appreciate."
"The newest version of ONTAP has a bit of a learning curve because you need to learn where things are to find them. It is not impossible, but when you are accustomed to the older version of ONTAP, it just takes a bit getting used to it, but it is about the same as before."
"The most valuable feature of NetApp AFF for us is its ability to manage multiple IP spaces for our customers in a shared environment."
"Using System Manager for green management or command line interface, we have a single point for managing the cluster. It is much easier to manage. It is very seamless. The product is robust and solid."
"The most valuable features are the performance and the storage efficiency, due to the compression and deduplication... The efficiency is very important because we can buy fewer disks for more data."
"The technical support is okay, but could be improved."
"The product should improve its response time. I have also encountered issues with its configuration."
"Pure Storage support could be a little better."
"It is not possible to create a cluster on top of multiple arrays."
"There are a lot of things to improve."
"The way Pure Storage does the controller storage warranty or replacement has been an issue for some people who just replace the controllers every couple of years, and that's where some of the confusion with pricing and support has come in. They should be clear on the way the controller replacements happen, as it is important to know whether or not you can get a good return on them, because it can be a little confusing."
"In some cases, we get into very in-depth conversations around movement of specific data and, what's more, chunk sizes. The documentation lacked any description or information on that."
"We did have one hiccup with the integration of vCenter. When we were installing Pure Storage, we were using vCenter 6.7, which defaults to the HTML5 Web Client. The current plugin for Pure Storage doesn't show up in that client at all. You have to go and use the legacy FlexFlash client to see the Pure Storage plugin in vCenter."
"I am not too impressed with XtremeIO because we had a major failure."
"The implementation isn't exactly complex, but the solution should have some enhancements in it to make the process more centralized."
"The product could be improved by reducing the pricing and having better organization in their technical support team."
"One thing that should be improved is the reporting and monitoring tools. It should use real time monitoring for storage, IOPS, latency, etc."
"I believe having more replication options comparatively to VMAX (other than RecoverPoint) would be great."
"It is very expensive to scale. You have to buy an additional system to extend from one disc, for instance. It is scalable, but extremely expensive to do so."
"Sometimes we don't get an immediate response from the support team. The initial POC also took a lot of resources."
"XtremIO is coming to its end of life."
"It would be helpful if the compatibility matrix was a bit better."
"In the past, NetApp designed it so that you have a 70% threshold. You would never fill up past 70% since you need to have that room available. Whereas with Pure, I can fill it up to 110% of what they listed and it's still going at full speed. NetApp can't do that."
"We only had a few upgrade issues."
"I would like them to roll in global monitoring instead of having to buy another product for it."
"In terms of improvement, the support could be a little better."
"The SRA stuff that intergrades with SRM is a problem point. It's a pain point. The support personnel aren't always knowledgeable on that product. At times, they are not even aware what product is supported and what is not, when one has been deprecated and there is a new one out, and what the bug fixes of the newer version are."
"It would be better if they just improved the performance of the system."
"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."
Dell XtremIO is ranked 25th in All-Flash Storage with 48 reviews while NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 280 reviews. Dell XtremIO is rated 7.6, while NetApp AFF is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of Dell XtremIO writes "Suitable for high IOPS and helps get backup in ten minutes ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp AFF writes "Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency". Dell XtremIO is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell Unity XT, INFINIDAT InfiniBox and VMware vSAN, whereas NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell Unity XT, Dell PowerStore, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, VMware vSAN and NetApp FAS Series. See our Dell XtremIO vs. NetApp AFF report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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