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.
"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"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 initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"Our AFF 8040 is currently helping us in terms of response time and speed because it is a flash system. Most importantly, it enables our SQL Cluster to respond to database queries and things a lot faster. It minimizes latency."
"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."
"It scales well, probably more so than the FAS. Because of the storage density with the SSDs, we can't buy enough SSDs to max one out."
"It is stable. In my three years working with the storage, I haven't seen any issues with our NetApp product."
"We found AFF systems very competitive in terms of performance, storage efficiency, feature richness, and scalability."
"The speed of data retrieval is the most valuable feature. We mostly use it for our SAP database and we are getting good IO from the hard drive."
"Using System Manager for green management or command line interface, we have a single point for managing the cluster. It is much easier to manage. It is very seamless. The product is robust and solid."
"It impacts customer retention because of its overall ease. When you are running a business, where time is a factor, that is the biggest selling point. Things happen really rapidly, when they happen, and being able to say, "Yeah, we can get this up and running in a day, if you want," or even less time in some cases. Sometimes, that can be what makes or breaks our case."
"The mobile app is very helpful."
"This solution is very scalable."
"The stability is very good. I've done destructive testing on it and never had any type of storage outages from it."
"The speed is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"It's easy to use, and the maintenance upgrades to get free controllers work really well."
"The most valuable features in Pure Storage FlashArray are deduplication and active cluster."
"The most valuable features are the replication of data and the continuous snapshot that we can take from the disc."
"The performance is very good."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"It is on the expensive side."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"In the past, NetApp designed it so that you have a 70% threshold. You would never fill up past 70% since you need to have that room available. Whereas with Pure, I can fill it up to 110% of what they listed and it's still going at full speed. NetApp can't do that."
"In terms of what needs improvement, I would like to see more consistency with the UI. It seems to change every few versions. The menus can be in a completely different place."
"With some of the larger clusters being able to do a patch upgrade is helping. They still take three, four hours by the time you get the night started, finish things up, do the upgrade."
"During the initial setup, you need to know what you are doing."
"Additional performance, additional data efficiencies, that's what everybody wants right now."
"A graphical user interface displaying efficiency metrics, such as compression and deduplication rates, would be a great addition."
"One of the areas that the product can improve is definitely in the user interface. We don't use it for SAN, but we've looked at using it for SAN and the SAN workflows are really problematic for my admins, and they just don't like doing SAN provisioning on that app. That really needs to change if we're going to adopt it and actually consider it to be a strong competitor versus some of the other options out there."
"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."
"Data reduction is an area that needs improvement. There is a garbage collection service that runs but during that time, system utilization increases."
"It is a bit expensive."
"They should work on their upgrades, they're not smooth."
"In the next release of this solution, we would like to see automated copy data management for SQL Server."
"Currently, the solution fails to support file screening."
"Pure Storage support could be a little better."
"They could improve the price."
"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."
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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