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.
"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"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 FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The compression is excellent."
"Typically, high-performance and high-availability features, such as application snapshots and remote and local replication, are highly valued."
"You can add compute and capacity independently. We have sized the solution based on our current needs, but in the future we can choose to increase capacity if we grow our activity in the market. And if we have more business in our monetary system, we can increase compute. The ability to choose what we increase is a good feature."
"There is no complicated configuration for queries and calls. You just create a model and go."
"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..."
"When compared to Pure Storage, Dell PowerStore's cost was quite attractive."
"I find all of the Dell PowerStore features to be valuable."
"Most of our business-critical systems are provisioned from the NetApp AFF system. Compared to others, we have a minimal latency. Configuring the DR for high availability or migrating the volumes from one box to another is pretty easy with NetApp AFF."
"Replication would be one of the most valuable features."
"It has a good interface. Its configuration and flexibility are also good."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to do QoS."
"It is stable. In my three years working with the storage, I haven't seen any issues with our NetApp product."
"Multi-protocol is the most valuable feature for us. It does everything in one system: sifts, EBES, ISCSI, and fiber channel. Other systems don't do all that."
"The speed, inline deduplication, and compression are really nice. It's also just easy to manage. We use Snapshot and SnapMirror offsite, which give us some good recovery options."
"NetApp AFF has helped to simplify our clients' infrastructure while still getting very high performance for their business-critical applications. One of our customers uses the vSAN environment in the release, then they use NFS for their VMware VCF environment and TKG environment. In this case, when they move to NetApp for the TKG and the VM infrastructures, they use AFF for block, CIFS, and NFS. It provides a single storage with NFS, block, and CIFS with deduplication, team provisioning, and compression. Everything is in there, which makes it very good to use."
"It is on the expensive side."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"The software layer has to improve."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"It was very new when we first deployed it a year ago. Even the upgrade processes and knowing what to expect, as well as documentation, could be more robust."
"It needs more mature code."
"While using Dell PowerStore's interface in our organization, we sometimes miss out on some information."
"You cannot delegate permissions."
"We are happy with the service in general. The only thing would be the price of the platform."
"The setup process could be improved. We had some issues regarding configuration and the time it took to do things. It wasn't specifically the people we worked with, but more the process and how it's done. They can work on that."
"More demonstration and training options are needed."
"The only area I can highlight for improvement is that the 4:1 data reduction target has not been reached. This may be due to an issue with Dell EMC's initial analysis of data compression. As a result, we have had to add new physical disks to reach our goal of total available disk space."
"I would like it to be an IP as our network is mainly IP-based."
"Offering the ability to actively write data on a single volume spanning multiple clusters is significant."
"I would like there to be a way to break out the 40 gig ports on them. We have a lot of 10 gigs in our environment. It is a big challenge breaking out the 40 gig coming out of the filer. It would be nice to have good old 10 gig ports again, or a card that has just 10 gig ports on it."
"I would like to see an improvement in the high availability of the NFS and CIFS sharing during upgrade and patching; this would help to avoid downtime."
"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."
"As for AFF itself, I don't have any suggestions of what I would be excited about seeing. I think that adding the support for the rest of APIs to AFF would be super handy. I think it's something that we've been waiting for for a while which would be fantastic."
"On the roadmap, NetApp is improving the solution's storage efficiency, compression algorithms to achieve more space savings, and the management interfaces. We are looking forward to these feature additions in the next release."
"It's a little behind on security. It's starting to get into multi-factor authentication, they just started to introduce it but not for all 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, Pure Storage FlashArray, Dell PowerMax NVMe and Huawei OceanStor Dorado, whereas NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell Unity XT, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Pure Storage FlashArray, VMware vSAN and NetApp FAS Series. 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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