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."The most valuable feature is its data reduction."
"The solution is easy to scale. I'm running two environments right now, so I need to scale. I'm running a part technology. I've got an A-side and a B-side."
"The management features are well organized and they have a very good dashboard."
"The initial setup was really straight forward."
"The predictive performance analytics are good."
"FlashArray has many valuable features. It's very user-friendly and it has high availability, so there is comparatively less downtime. During maintenance, there is no shutdown procedure, so you can directly power off the Array and manage the shutdown process without any data loss, which is a unique feature. Managing replication and data migration is also very easy."
"The initial setup was very straightforward and very quick. It was up and running in our data center within 24 hours of receiving it."
"The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is the all-flash storage performance, low latency, and efficiency of their de-duplication technology. Additionally, the ease of use is good compared to other storage systems. The features in data protection, snapshotting, and replication between data centers and sites are superior to other solutions."
"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."
"XtremIO’s capability to run any workload without much in the way of design considerations makes this very easy to use and size."
"We've seen great enhancements from the performance point of view. There's good availability, stability, and continuity, but the performance actually has increased by 60 or 70%."
"Snapshots are valuable because of their seamless nature, as well as the minimal space each snapshot takes."
"XtremIO is very stable."
"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."
"Thin storage allocation"
"The guaranteed sub-millisecond response time for a 4K block."
"The ease of use for setting up our basic shares such as NFS and CIFS is valuable. It takes a couple of clicks to set up things like object shares."
"Speed. it's very performance designed. It's designed to have a lot of high speed."
"The Snapshots and just the overall flexibility of the product have been great."
"MetroCluster provides business continuity and is a critical part of our contingency setup."
"Multi-protocol is the most valuable feature for us. It does everything in one system: sifts, EBES, ISCSI, and fiber channel. Other systems don't do all that."
"When we move to all-flash, our response times were reduced to microseconds."
"Even though the complete workload will fill out the AFF storage box, it will give us sustained stability."
"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."
"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."
"I would like to see support for NVMe, end-to-end."
"A three wave application or multi wave application synchronization would be an improvement."
"If they could make it cheaper, that would be something."
"There's always an opportunity for new feature functionality."
"On a couple of occasions, the waiting time for an upgrade has been pretty substantial."
"I would like to see data tiering to AWS."
"The GUI could improve, it could be more intuitive. There is hidden functionality."
"Dell's technical support could be better."
"In the next release, the solution could have better integration and if we can host assets on the cloud, such as NetApp has the NetApp volumes, which we can host on the cloud directly called NetApp CVO (cloud volume ONTAP). Dell EMC should come up with something purely on the cloud rather than manage services."
"Right now, external appliances are needed to replicate XtremIO to XtremIO, or to another EMC system."
"The implementation isn't exactly complex, but the solution should have some enhancements in it to make the process more centralized."
"XtremIO is coming to its end of life."
"Scalability is something that can be improved because there is an issue when it comes to mixing versions."
"The solution needs to be simplified. When you integrate your storage with other systems, could use a little bit of automation."
"I would like hardware capacity additions to be a little more flexible. The upgrade path for the existing XTremIO units requires you to purchase 2 XBricks at a time and they need to be the same capacity as the existing XBricks."
"On the fiber channel side, there is a limit of sixteen terabytes on each line, and we would like to see this raised because we are having to use some other products."
"I would like it to be an IP as our network is mainly IP-based."
"Migrating from a public cloud to on-prem or on-prem to a cloud can be a bit complicated. They have their own solution, but it should be easy to use."
"I would like to see an improvement in the high availability of the NFS and CIFS sharing during upgrade and patching; this would help to avoid downtime."
"The quality of technical support has dwindled over time and needs to be improved."
"I would like to see aggregate level encryption in the next release. This is critical."
"The NetApp support could be better."
"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."
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 VAST Data. See our Dell XtremIO vs. NetApp AFF report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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