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 most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"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 benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."
"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."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"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."
"The most important features are the IOPS and the ease of the ONTAP manageability."
"Batch times went from approximately seven hours down to about two and a half. Functionality during the day, such as taking or removing snapshots and cloning instances, is higher than it has ever been."
"It is a stable solution."
"The features that I found most valuable are SnapMirror and SnapVault; these provide DR and backup for data redundancy."
"It is easy to manage data through the GUI by using Active IQ and the unified manager."
"The most valuable features are the speed and performance for our transactional workloads for our databases."
"I like some basic features like Snapshot, FlexClone, and advanced features such as SnapMirror, and SnapVault. They also recently enhanced the market with Cloud Volumes ONTAP. I think that NetApp is a very good product."
"It is an easy to use product for all of my team members."
"I have seen a huge increase in speed and performance on our databases."
"They have really good baked in analytics to show you trends for growth history, so it does help with future planning for data growth."
"It is easy to deploy and it's all-flash, so it's very fast."
"The ease of management is one of the most valuable features of this solution. I would have also said that it's pretty fast but now our SQL servers are starting to beat it up pretty bad."
"The stability is very good. I've done destructive testing on it and never had any type of storage outages from it."
"Having fast storage allows actual servers to perform in high capacity so we don't have slowdowns on our applications."
"I never have to worry about its performance or if it is the root cause of an issue."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"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."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"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."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"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."
"One of the features that I am looking for, which is already in the works, is to be able to take my code and automatically move it to the cloud."
"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."
"Its integration could be improved."
"The size of NetApp could be better. They're always about 40 pounds without the hard drives in them, so it would be great if there's a way to make them smaller yet keep the functionality. That would reduce the physical footprint."
"A graphical user interface displaying efficiency metrics, such as compression and deduplication rates, would be a great addition."
"I want an interface through ONTAP that look more like what it does for the E-Series with Santricity."
"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."
"I would like to see aggregate level encryption in the next release. This is critical."
"I would like to see them lower the costs."
"As partners, we should have the option to download the software, rather than have to go back through Pure to obtain it."
"In the configuration, which we brought in or tested it in, it has a very limited config as far as the array goes. That said, it still did more than our anticipation."
"Storage. There could be better storage."
"The GUI could improve, it could be more intuitive. There is hidden functionality."
"The support for NFS protocols right out-of-the-box need improvement. I'm used to other storage vendors who have NFS support right out-of-the-box, and Pure Storage doesn't seem to have anything."
"The primary drawback is the cost, which can be prohibitive for small configurations."
"We need to add more storage in Pure Storage FlashArray with the cluster mode activated for us to have better performance."
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 VAST Data, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem, VMware vSAN and Pure Storage FlashBlade. See our NetApp AFF vs. Pure Storage FlashArray report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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