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 system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"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."
"The overall latency in our environment is very low because it's All Flash and we've got 10 Giga dedicated to the storage network"
"We had some customers who were running virtualization workloads on classical spinning disks. We implemented an AFF system, and they got a huge performance boost out of it because the latency of the SSDs is simply much lower. Actually, most customers benefit from the improved latency and performance from the AFF systems."
"The most valuable features of the solution are speed, performance, and reliability."
"We can go through and do an upgrade without worrying about any issues with the process"
"The speed, inline deduplication, and compression are really nice. It's also just easy to manage. We use Snapshot and SnapMirror offsite, which give us some good recovery options."
"Speed, reliability, ease of use are the most valuable features."
"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."
"The performance is outstanding when it's all Flash. That's the biggest bang for the buck that we get."
"It gives us capacity planning."
"What I like most about this solution, is the speed, resiliency and scalability."
"Very stable; no worries about how much it can handle."
"For us, the most valuable feature is the compression and deduplication. Being able to deploy a three to one ratio for storage is absolutely critical in today's world with the growing need for storage and the growing need for more space."
"I use all the features of this solution and I find them to be easy to use and functional, such as the compression and capacity to expand."
"Technical support has been amazing."
"It is noticeably easier to manage than other appliances that we have."
"It's extremely stable and has good performance."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"It is on the expensive side."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"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."
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"NetApp should have a local presence in Pakistan."
"Stability could be improved."
"Technical support could use some improvement."
"There is room for improvement in terms of support. I have noticed that if I sometimes call their customer care for a particular issue, they will give me another number and ask me to call that other team. It would be better if they could do a warm transfer. That would save customers time from calling all the numbers again and speaking to another team."
"We were migrating from Data ONTAP 7-Mode to its Cluster-Mode. Therefore, we had to get swing gear, then do the migration from loner gear and back onto our new gear. This was a bit difficult. It took us several months to do multiple migrations."
"We have had issues with CIFS presentations and outages, so if that was removed, we could do seamless upgrades without affecting CIFS presentations. That would be an advantage. That's about the only improvement I can think of."
"There are some bugs with the solution which need to be fixed."
"The total cost of ownership has increased a little."
"We would like to see more cloud support, which we know is coming, although it's not out yet. It's going to be released in the next versions. That would be the biggest win, if additional cloud support is built into the array."
"The price of the solution can improve."
"I would like to see data tiering to AWS."
"Beyond a certain amount of petabytes, you have to have a separate system. Basically, it's not infinitely scalable."
"We haven't seen ROI."
"I would rate this solution an eight because we have had outages. The commit times went very high in the database. The whole array went down so our customers were down for around eight hours. This was a very big outage which could have been our fault because we didn't do the upgrade in time."
"The product should improve its response time. I have also encountered issues with its configuration."
"The GUI is simplistic and basic. I feel like it's explanatory, but not enough, it needs a little more to it."
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.
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.