We performed a comparison between NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) vs Pure Storage FlashArray
based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Pure Storage FlashArray has a slight edge in this comparison because users were happier with its ease of deployment and features.
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"The tool has lowered latency."
"The business copy solution has become faster using SnapMirror."
"Deduplication"
"The most valuable feature, primarily, would be speed. That's why we got it. Storage is costly but it's very, very fast. Very efficient, very fast."
"The Active IQ feature is a productive mechanism that automatically collects reports and users' statuses."
"We found AFF systems very competitive in terms of performance, storage efficiency, feature richness, and scalability."
"It's pretty scalable. It can scale up to 24 nodes."
"Speed, reliability, ease of use are the most valuable features."
"It is an easy to use product for all of my team members."
"It's extremely stable and has good performance."
"This solution is very scalable."
"Its array houses our entire production environment."
"The most valuable feature is it never goes down. We can expand and create volumes."
"The management features are well organized and they have a very good dashboard."
"The initial setup was very straightforward and very quick. It was up and running in our data center within 24 hours of receiving it."
"It's just very easy for general block storage."
"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."
"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."
"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."
"We need better data deduplication."
"The scaling needs improvement. NetApp is limited for scaling options."
"There is no direct storage attachment available. Most configurations require additional switches for data access."
"The response to basic problems could be faster. They usually respond fast when there are critical issues, but you always want it right now."
"It would be better if they just improved the performance of the system."
"The Bezels need improvement."
"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 think for us, improvement would probably be the changes in how the flash is actually used inside the system and how we manage the actual disk and stripes within the system."
"The initial setup has a lot more steps in it than are probably necessary for a base deployment, unlike other vendors where it's more straightforward. It could be a little bit more streamlined."
"I think replication is one area that still needs improvement. Earlier, Pure Storage FlashArray only had IP-based replication. There was no API-based replication, but they have enhanced the feature now. However, they need to work on API replication for C-type of arrays."
"I'd like to see a move towards individual VMs for what the performance of each VM is in a VD infrastructure. I can see the overall volume, but I would love to see things in a more granular level on the VM side."
"If we suddenly dump large amounts of data onto the storage system, it takes a while to process it."
"The internal garbage collection process has been fixed recently in some OS updates so it is more efficient but that could be just a little better."
"They should work on their upgrades, they're not smooth."
"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 like to see the NAS add-on component become more fault-tolerant than just a single virtual machine running inside the array. I'm unwilling to use it for that reason."
"It's too early to tell if we've seen a reduction in total cost of ownership. The solution is expensive."
NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 280 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 174 reviews. NetApp AFF is rated 9.0, while Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.2. 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 Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable". NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell Unity XT, Dell PowerStore, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, VMware vSAN and NetApp FAS Series, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem, VMware vSAN and Dell Unity XT. See our NetApp AFF vs. Pure Storage FlashArray report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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