DDN IntelliFlash vs SolidFire comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between DDN IntelliFlash and SolidFire based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Pure Storage and others in All-Flash Storage.
To learn more, read our detailed All-Flash Storage Report (Updated: April 2024).
770,394 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The solution is scalable.""Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.""The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability.""The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward.""It has good, reliable, fast storage.""One of the best features is the support, which is excellent.""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.""What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

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"The initial setup is straightforward.""Data Compression: Up to 80% space reduction in the database""It performed great originally, and when it performed great, it was awesome.""It provides a combination of all the protocols that you need, without losing deduplication and compression.""It's very fast. We were seeing read latencies of less than one millisecond. It is robust.""EasyTier/hotcaching: Valuable because it allows greater performance than standard SAS disks""It has reduced our electricity usage by reducing the amount of disks needed for the virtual environment.""High performance and ease-of-management are the most valuable features."

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"If we get complaints about any kind of performance metric issues, whether it's storage related or something on the virtual side, we use it to pinpoint what the actual issue is.""The most valuable feature is the performance, as well as how you manage performance on the system.""SolidFire has seamless performance for the nodes and extensions. I also like the tool’s scalability. The product’s performance does not get affected when we scale either up or down. This is not the case with other products.""Templates are already predefined for it. If you're coding it up, it will take two days. You can pick up a template right there from the API, and it just works for you. Implementation done in 10 minutes.""It is very easy to scale up SolidFire.""The scalability and being able to implement it quickly.""We can add a node, we add compute, we add storage, and we've had really good luck with that.""I would say in terms of architecture and in terms of functionality, the product is quite good."

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Cons
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution.""We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI.""The tool's pricing is higher than competitors.""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.""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 next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models.""We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

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"Performance is horrible now. Our original intent was to buy new storage in about two years. But since it became a critical urgency for us, we decided to purchase a new one in two or three months.""Snapshots are not as easy to access as on a NetApp device.""Technical support is bad. It'd grade them at 30% or 40%. The response time is terrible.""We had just one small stability problem with power flapping and it did not start up again automatically. We had to access service ports and manually restart the storage processors.""In the proxy section you can’t choose a user account and password, so it is not allowed at the moment to go out, if customer has such constellation.""It only keeps one hour of real-time data without the ability to do deep analysis of each element.""They need to offer better integration for a virtual platform to enable you to create hyper-converged solution.""It's somewhat scalable, but maybe not so much as some of the competition."

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"The scalability of HCI or SolidFire as such isn't a concern, but when you compare it to PowerMax or NetApp AFF series devices, scalability is a concern because it's only the drives that are connected to the nodes. We don't have any shelf connectivity.""The tool should improve its initial cost which is expensive compared to other products.""We are looking for, potentially, on the Active IQ reporting side, to do reporting based on the datastore. Right now, I can report on the whole SolidFire, or I can report on just a certain datastore or a volume. I'd like to take all of my VDI infrastructure, which as an example would be multiple datastores.""It's a very good Windows-type solution. But we do a lot of legacy systems and the like. So it's getting that incorporated into it that would help us.""They could do a file-based NAS: SolidFire NAS-based. It's probably not its niche, but that is our direction, not to use block, and it's block. Solid state block is what it is.""The user interface needs to be improved. Much of the client feedback involves comments such as "Oh, it's hard to navigate through."""The technical support is really bad and has to be improved.""You don't have business continuity with SolidFire. I think it could be a nice feature to have in the future."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."
  • "We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
  • "With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
  • "Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
  • "As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
  • "They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."
  • "Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."
  • "The licensing is on a yearly basis."
  • More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I recommend the full bundle software in order to have all the functionality. It is more expensive to purchase it one by one."
  • "I think we pay around 100 grand per year for three arrays or four arrays."
  • More DDN IntelliFlash Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "We would probably use SolidFire more, except we're getting more bang for our buck with our purchases of ONTAP right now, and the deal we made with NetApp, so it's more of just a cost decision"
  • "The price of this solution is more expensive than others."
  • "Based on what I heard from other people, its price was on the higher side."
  • "On a scale where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the solution between three and four. It is an expensive solution."
  • "It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for what you get."
  • More SolidFire Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover… more »
    Top Answer:I would rate the solution as an eight out of ten in terms of costliness.
    Top Answer:There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class… more »
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    Top Answer:The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance… more »
    Top Answer:It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for… more »
    Top Answer:There is room for improvement with a focus on creating a centralized storage system, functioning similar to AWS. This… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
    Tegile, IntelliFlash N-Series, IntelliFlash T-Series, IntelliFlash HD-Series
    Learn More
    Overview

    Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

    Western Digital through its IntelliFlash arrays delivers high-performance storage with a complete range of features and connectivity options, including inline compression and deduplication, application and VM consistent snapshots, replication, RAID, data encryption, VMware vCenter integration, and multi-protocol support for SAN (FC, iSCSI) and NAS (NFS, SMBv3). IntelliFlash arrays deliver high availability through dualredundant and hot-swappable components, active/active or active/passive controllers, non-disruptive software upgrades, eMLC flash, and proactive cloud-based monitoring, analytics, and intelligence. A RESTful API provides scripted or programmatic control.

    SolidFire delivers all five core elements needed to deliver newfound storage agility to your next generation data center and beyond. With SolidFire you can deploy new applications and capabilities faster, provide more agile and scalable infrastructure, increase application performance and predictability, enable automation and end-user self-service and raise operational efficiency and reduce cost.

    Sample Customers
    Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
    Bank of Stockton, Barnsley College, Boyes Turner, Brigham Young University
    California Public Utilities Commission, RFA, 1&1, Ultimate Software , Endicia, ezVerify, MercadoLibre, Sungard Availability Services, ServInt, Elastx, Hosted Network, Colt, Crucial, iWeb, Datapipe, Databarracks
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company23%
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Manufacturing Company18%
    Comms Service Provider14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Government6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company13%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    University9%
    Healthcare Company8%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider27%
    Retailer20%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Construction Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm22%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Real Estate/Law Firm7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise28%
    Large Enterprise34%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise60%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business67%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise17%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise7%
    Large Enterprise70%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise53%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise68%
    Buyer's Guide
    All-Flash Storage
    April 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Pure Storage and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: April 2024.
    770,394 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    DDN IntelliFlash is ranked 29th in All-Flash Storage with 11 reviews while SolidFire is ranked 19th in All-Flash Storage with 33 reviews. DDN IntelliFlash is rated 7.4, while SolidFire is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of DDN IntelliFlash writes "Good features with an easy initial setup but technical support is slow ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolidFire writes "A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance". DDN IntelliFlash is most compared with Pure Storage FlashArray, VAST Data, Tintri VMstore T7000 and NetApp AFF, whereas SolidFire is most compared with NetApp AFF, Dell PowerStore, VMware vSAN and Pure Storage FlashArray.

    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.