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."They are quite responsive and our local team was pretty good."
"It is noticeably easier to manage than other appliances that we have."
"The security operating system is its most valuable feature because it's very simple, easy to use, and operate. You don't have to do very serious training to operate this equipment. It's user-friendly and pretty straightforward."
"The technical support is very good."
"I like its speed. It has all the features that I need."
"The support team is available all the time and they seem to know what they are doing."
"Redundancy and the fault tolerance of the platform are the most impressive."
"The most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray are simplicity, ease of use, and dashboard management."
"Very good IOPS performance"
"The speed is extremely valuable."
"The performance is good, which is important."
"XtremIO is very stable."
"The most valuable feature of Dell EMC XtremIO is the data protection (DP) group, it is one of the most advanced features in these types of arrays. The dedupe and compression that this array provides both do a superb job."
"Thin storage allocation"
"Linear performance – The XtremIO wasn’t the fastest in all tests against other all flash arrays, but even with a massive workload, the response time and user experience were absolutely predictable with no sharp drop-offs."
"Performance and deduplication. This is a very robust block storage option that offers both performance and data optimization."
"It has a good interface. Its configuration and flexibility are also good."
"Supports file formatting, the main protocols, and the hot swapping of disks and features."
"I would say the consistency with the ONTAP versions and the speed and performance from the flash."
"We reduced our floor space by reducing 44 racks units to four rack units. It has helped us with our data center economies of scale. It reduces our support costs too, which is great."
"The speed of data retrieval is the most valuable feature. We mostly use it for our SAP database and we are getting good IO from the hard drive."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"Snapshots, snap clones, backups, flexibility, and agility are valuable features. I like that NetApp AFF is easy to use. We can automate everything for our backups and use cases. It's fast and simple, and provides storage to all of our VMware ESX hosts. It expands easily as well."
"The Active IQ feature is a productive mechanism that automatically collects reports and users' statuses."
"The system has dual controllers but does not have a high level of resiliency built-in."
"The scalability of the solution is not as good as it probably could be."
"I would love to see a true one click upgrade solution. Right now, you have to click and schedule an appointment with Pure Storage to be able to upgrade. I would love for it to automatically download, install, and fall-over every controller as it updates."
"One thing I'd like to see in a future release is integration between their main storage array and what they call their FlashBlade product; to be able to snapshot directly from the primary array into multiple different backup copies on FlashBlade."
"Beyond a certain amount of petabytes, you have to have a separate system. Basically, it's not infinitely scalable."
"They could improve the price."
"Most of our upgrades have not been as smooth as they should have been."
"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."
"Scalability is something that can be improved because there is an issue when it comes to mixing versions."
"Native data replication: To replicate data between XtremIO devices, you need to use EMC’s RecoverPoint appliances to move the data."
"If you are looking at flash storage solutions, XtremIO doesn't offer any unique features. Most of my customers are migrating their workload from XtremIO to other formats because of this."
"The solution needs to be simplified. When you integrate your storage with other systems, could use a little bit of automation."
"Right now, external appliances are needed to replicate XtremIO to XtremIO, or to another EMC system."
"I would like to see more scalability."
"Dell's technical support could be better."
"The product could be improved by reducing the pricing and having better organization in their technical support team."
"Cleaning up false positives on alerts. We get a lot of those."
"The quality of technical support has dwindled over time and needs to be improved."
"As for AFF itself, I don't have any suggestions of what I would be excited about seeing. I think that adding the support for the rest of APIs to AFF would be super handy. I think it's something that we've been waiting for for a while which would be fantastic."
"Technical support is a little lackluster. Some of the issues that we've had were opening up tickets. They seem to be routed in the wrong direction or it takes one or two days to get a call back for simple tasks."
"There is no direct storage attachment available. Most configurations require additional switches for data access."
"When it comes to the connectivity on the back end, where the hardware is concerned—the cabling and the like—it could also be simplified to ease the communication between the nodes and between the other components of the infrastructure. I still find that a little bit complicated."
"Going forward, I would like improvement in the response latencies, capacity size, cache, and controller size."
"It would be very useful if we could do the NFS to CIFS file transfer, but it is not supported at this time."
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.
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.