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 duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."
"Pure has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."
"The tool's most valuable feature is SVM. I also like the speed and response of the filers."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"NetApp AFF is very good at cleaning up your storage."
"This solution makes everything a lot faster. The time to move data around, boot and migrate VMs is much faster."
"Regarding features, SnapMirror is one we depend on right now. It helps us provide snapshots to the customers on request. There are many scenarios in which we might take snapshots in various daily use cases. We trigger the snapshots, which gives us a sense of security because we know we have this technology in place if something happens."
"AFF works well for VMware storage."
"The most valuable features are the ease of administration and configuration, as well as the speed of deployment."
"I like how easy it is to discover an issue and either resolve that issue or fine-tune that app to premium support to find that resolution."
"On a scale of one to ten, where ten is the most comfortable pricing, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
"One of the lesser sung advantages was when we started running our interface engine on Pure Storage. The ability to process messages and pass them through in our organization skyrocketed purely because of a disk that I owned which we were getting out of Pure Storage."
"The amount of data that I have moved to it from legacy storage has enabled us to retire units that are three or four times the physical size."
"It is easy to manage. You don't have to have the same people who used to manage the Dell EMC arrays because the solution is more intuitive."
"The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is the complete set of functions it provides."
"It has good stability for our company."
"It is all-flash. This makes it a lot faster than the rest of what we have, as it is able to drive high I/O loads, which is big for us."
"The most valuable feature is replication."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"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."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"There needs to be compatibility with upgraded applications. We don't want the system to be upgraded, but not have backwards compatible to existing applications."
"I would like to see if they could move the virtual storage machines. They have integrated a DR, so you can back to your DR, but there's no automated way to failover and failback. It's all manual. I'd like to see it all automated."
"I want an interface through ONTAP that look more like what it does for the E-Series with Santricity."
"In terms of improvement, IO performance could use some enhancement."
"We'd like to see improvement in the time to retrieve from the Cloud, whether it's on-prem to cloud and whether it's public or private cloud."
"The bad part about having scalability is the expense. It is currently extremely expensive, to be able to scale so fast on flash."
"To be more competitive in the industry, they can develop deduplication, compression, and smarter features in the same array instead of all-flash."
"ZAPI is kind of difficult to use. You know, it's SOAP-like, it's not really SOAP. I would like to see it more of a REST-based JSON, instead of XML."
"I like what they're doing, but some of my customers complain that they do not have all the bells and whistles and knobs to fine-tune workloads that some of the competitors have. In my opinion, that's good. All customers don't have dedicated storage gurus, and they can get themselves into trouble if they fine-tune too many of those high-performance knobs, but they do get knocked down. Pure Storage takes a hit in the minds and opinions of some of the customers because they cannot customize things as much as compared to a legacy storage provider's appliance such as NetApp, Dell EMC, or even HPE. I personally think 95% of my customers are better off letting the system fine-tune itself. That was something that you needed to do 12 or 15 years ago, but now with all-flash, the technology can handle what it needs to handle. Customers just end up shooting themselves in the foot if they are tweaking too many default settings."
"In the next release of the solution I would like to see Vormetric native block encryption."
"I would like to have an easy way to determine the cost per VM so that I can present a solution to our customers."
"The credentials on the iSCSI interface are only available to type in with the Chrome browser, and not with the Firefox browser."
"It was not proactive communication."
"Data reduction is an area that needs improvement. There is a garbage collection service that runs but during that time, system utilization increases."
"The price should be lower."
"It would be good to have metrics of the box's performance so we can see what it delivers, but currently, I can't see what it's actually doing."
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.