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."Pure Storage technology allowed us to automate tasks, reducing something which started as a 12-hour turnaround down to about 15 minutes."
"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 product cheaper compared to other solutions concerning the technology that they are using."
"The predictive performance analytics is a very good feature, as our system is performing better than before."
"At this point, I don't know anything that they could provide in a better way."
"We like the speed. It's very low latency. In virtualization, you can mask lots of problems, and even in code you can mask lots of problems, with low latency. It's just pure speed and low latency."
"The management is simple in Pure Storage FlashArray."
"The most valuable feature is replication."
"Dell XtremIO is good for databases and huge workloads."
"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 Metro clustering and solid-state performance, are the most valuable features of this solution."
"The most valuable features are that it is fast and reliable."
"Very good IOPS performance"
"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%."
"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."
"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."
"The cloning and snapshot features are the most valuable. With snapshot backup, we can clone a big database in minutes. We take a lot of snapshots for clients in different environments."
"Speed. it's very performance designed. It's designed to have a lot of high speed."
"We have had issues before on our infrastructure where 20 to 30 percent of the people would come to us pointing the finger at the storage technology or storage back-end. That is now virtually zero."
"We have SQL clusters across the United States. It has sped up our IOPS and made it a lot easier for users."
"It also helps to accelerate databases in our environment. First of all, there is the reliability of things staying online and the small response time as well, from the MetroCluster, for all of the data that we're serving; and the applications are talking to the MetroCluster. It provides a very fast response time."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its simplicity. It is easy to use."
"Performance is excellent. In fact, it's so fast that we're not really even taxing it all that much."
"This solution has reduced our data center costs because when we went from the 8000 and 3200 series that took us from 20 racks of storage down to two."
"The integration capabilities could be improved."
"Storage. There could be better storage."
"I would like to see a Nagios monitoring plugin which watches the health and performance of the system. The only one available just checks volume capacity."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve in the area of cryptographic information in the consoles. The user-friendliness could improve. The Pure Storage FlashArray team should come and log into the system with their maintenance credentials and then pull out the information as evidence of cryptography."
"I would like to see them lower the costs."
"The price of the solution can improve."
"Beyond a certain amount of petabytes, you have to have a separate system. Basically, it's not infinitely scalable."
"Automation could be simplified."
"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."
"Ease of use is key in the converged and hyper-converged world that requires administrators to have both hypervisor and storage skills."
"Dell's technical support could be better."
"Management and reporting need improvement."
"The management should be improved and the GUI interface could be better and easier."
"One thing that should be improved is the reporting and monitoring tools. It should use real time monitoring for storage, IOPS, latency, etc."
"The GUI could be modified more in terms of how the different components are linked to each other."
"Native data replication: To replicate data between XtremIO devices, you need to use EMC’s RecoverPoint appliances to move the data."
"I would like for them to develop the ability to detach the fabric pool. Once you've added it to an aggregate it's there for life and it would be nice to disconnect it if we ever had to."
"Going forward, I would like more performance analytics on it, on the area itself, instead of using some other tool."
"The response to basic problems could be faster. They usually respond fast when there are critical issues, but you always want it right now."
"FC and ATTO bridges are still needed for cross datacenter replication."
"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."
"There are some bugs with the solution which need to be fixed."
"After the three-year prepay, the extended warranty is a little expensive."
"We only had a few upgrade issues."
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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