We compared NetApp AFF and Dell PowerStore based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
NetApp AFF impresses users with exceptional performance, customer service, competitive pricing, and positive ROI, but needs improvements in integration and scalability. Dell PowerStore stands out for storage performance, customer service, pricing, and positive ROI, while users suggest enhancements in ease of use and performance optimization.
Features: NetApp AFF is highly regarded for its exceptional performance, scalability, efficient data management, high availability, and seamless integration. Dell PowerStore, on the other hand, is praised for its ease of use, intuitive interface, robust security features, comprehensive support services, and workload performance optimization.
Pricing and ROI: The setup cost of NetApp AFF is described as straightforward and not difficult for users, while Dell PowerStore is reported to have a relatively low setup cost, making it convenient for users. Users have had positive experiences with the licensing process of both products, finding it smooth and user-friendly., The ROI from NetApp AFF was impressive, with increased productivity, efficiency, and improved data storage capabilities. Users praised its reliability and performance. On the other hand, Dell PowerStore offered flexibility, scalability, and advanced features, delivering tangible benefits and meeting expectations.
Room for Improvement: NetApp AFF would benefit from improvements in performance optimization, software functionality, and scalability for larger deployments. Users also mention the need for a more intuitive and user-friendly interface. Dell PowerStore could benefit from enhancements in ease of use, interface simplicity, and performance optimization. Users desire a more intuitive and efficient interface when navigating the system, with optimized speed and responsiveness for handling large amounts of data. Overall, improvements should focus on enhancing user experience and maximizing system performance.
Deployment and customer support: The user reviews indicate that the duration required for establishing a new tech solution can vary greatly for both NetApp AFF and Dell PowerStore. However, there is a difference in terms of the context in which users use the terms "deployment" and "setup." Some users of NetApp AFF spend three months on deployment and an additional week on setup, while others required only a week for both phases. On the other hand, some Dell PowerStore users reported spending three months on deployment, while others needed a week for setup. It is important to consider the overall timeframes mentioned when evaluating the user reviews for both products., Users have reported highly positive experiences with the customer service and support of both NetApp AFF and Dell PowerStore. NetApp AFF is praised for its knowledgeable and attentive support team, while Dell PowerStore is commended for its prompt and efficient assistance. Both companies demonstrate professionalism and address queries effectively.
The summary above is based on 82 interviews we conducted recently with NetApp AFF and Dell PowerStore users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"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."
"We like the speed. It's very low latency. In virtualization, you can mask lots of problems, and even in code you can mask lots of problems, with low latency. It's just pure speed and low latency."
"It simplifies the overall management. We don't have to worry about storage anymore."
"Pure gives us better compression, it's easier to manage, a lot less hands-on."
"It's just very easy for general block storage."
"The most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray are simplicity, ease of use, and dashboard management."
"The deduplication and compression rates are beyond impressive."
"The all-flash disc is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"The compression is excellent."
"The most valuable feature is that it is easy to use this frame. I am a SAN administrator, but I was able to train my colleague, who had only been a VMware administrator, on the PowerStore in about half a day. Now he's autonomous in assigning volumes and creating data stores..."
"The deduplication functionality provided by the solution is fairly good. The speed offered by the product is enough for our organization."
"The simplicity and ease of use have been very valuable features. I have a very small team, and only half of the team is well versed in the HP product. Whereas if I bring PowerStore in, everyone can learn it because it will be new on the floor."
"Currently, the features of replication and deduplication have been very important to us."
"This solution is highly flexible and offers efficient online compression capabilities."
"Dell EMC PowerStore is scalable."
"Dell PowerStore is an easy and fast tool to work through our company's data."
"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."
"This solution has reduced our data center costs because when we went from the 8000 and 3200 series that took us from 20 racks of storage down to two."
"It is a stable solution."
"I like the ability to snapshot, and the cloning features are valuable to us as well. I like that I can quickly and efficiently snapshot the data and move it to wherever I need to locally or in the cloud. Also, I know that when I take the snapshot that all of the data will be there and that it will be usable when I need to use it."
"One of the main features that differentiate AFF from the FAS products, or some other technologies used, is the footprint of these arrays are significantly smaller than the traditional ones. Also, the performance that you get to these new arrays is really significant. You can see a huge difference there. By switching to it, we can achieve more storage performance and efficiency as well as in the long run lower down some of the TCOs due to reducing the footprint."
"We just migrated two petabytes of data storage from IBM over to NetApp All Flash. Some of the performance improvement that we've seen is 100 times I/O and microsecond latency."
"The technical support is fantastic. No one else is like their team. We're happy with them."
"The NVMe flash cache is the most useful feature. It lowers transactional speed even more."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve by being more secure."
"I would like to have support available in Spanish."
"Pure Storage support could be a little better."
"There are many features which need to be added, particularly on the replication side."
"Data reduction is an area that needs improvement. There is a garbage collection service that runs but during that time, system utilization increases."
"We've had it in place for about a year and a half and have had zero complaints, other than that box-to-box replication is not encrypted."
"The integration capabilities could be improved."
"I would like some performance analytics which go deeper than today. It should be specific to some hosts and applications. This would be good."
"The NAS part is very poor. It's very basic. Even Dell EMC has said that to us. We are waiting for version 3 of PowerStore for that. This must be improved and it is in the roadmap."
"The storage could be improved. I would like a feature for how to best secure an appliance and the storage since we are connecting the container to the public cloud. I would like them to develop another level of security, making it more secure than from what they have now."
"Horizontal scaling has room for improvement."
"The pricing could be lower. It is very expensive."
"I have not seen anything specific. The only thing I can think of that needs improvement is the price."
"It's also only supported with a limited amount of switches."
"The cost of technical support is high."
"You cannot delegate permissions."
"The cost of this solution should be reduced."
"Higher communication: I love the professional services and I love everything that everyone's able to offer us, but I find sometimes we're not aware of all the things that NetApp can do."
"It would be better if they just improved the performance of the system."
"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."
"When it comes to the connectivity on the back end, where the hardware is concerned—the cabling and the like—it could also be simplified to ease the communication between the nodes and between the other components of the infrastructure. I still find that a little bit complicated."
"I would like to see a little more flexibility in customizing some of the SnapMirror stuff. We have been having a little trouble and, in the first round with tech support, they say, "Well, this is how we do it." It's not exactly throttled but it's limited in the number of connections it makes. We would like to be able to tweak that, to increase it a little bit, because we don't have half a dozen large areas that we are protecting, we have more like 40 or 50 areas. They run into each other a little bit and I don't want to spend time on them."
"The graphical interface is still heavy and slow. Needs more improvement in this area."
"On the fiber channel side, there is a limit of sixteen terabytes on each line, and we would like to see this raised because we are having to use some other products."
Dell PowerStore is ranked 1st in All-Flash Storage with 46 reviews while NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 280 reviews. Dell PowerStore is rated 8.6, while NetApp AFF is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of Dell PowerStore writes "It has a very strong NAS that can support a lot of big, heavy environments". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp AFF writes "Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency". Dell PowerStore is most compared with Dell Unity XT, IBM FlashSystem, Dell PowerMax NVMe, Huawei OceanStor Dorado and HPE Nimble Storage, whereas NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell Unity XT, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, VMware vSAN, NetApp FAS Series and VAST Data. See our Dell PowerStore vs. NetApp AFF report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors and best NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays vendors.
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