We performed a comparison between Pure Storage FlashArray and DNN IntelliFlash based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Pure Storage FlashArray came out ahead of DDN IntelliFlash. Although both products have valuable features and can be estimated as high-end solutions, our reviewers found DDN IntelliFlash more difficult to deploy, with more capabilities for improvement, and with less reliable support.
"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"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."
"The solution is scalable."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"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."
"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"EasyTier/hotcaching: Valuable because it allows greater performance than standard SAS disks"
"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."
"It performed great originally, and when it performed great, it was awesome."
"It has reduced our electricity usage by reducing the amount of disks needed for the virtual environment."
"Data Compression: Up to 80% space reduction in the database"
"High performance and ease-of-management are the most valuable features."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"One of the lesser sung advantages was when we started running our interface engine on Pure Storage. The ability to process messages and pass them through in our organization skyrocketed purely because of a disk that I owned which we were getting out of Pure Storage."
"The back-end data reporting for Pure Storage is phenomenal. The data that you can see on the performance of your customers' array, so you can be proactive about upgrades or enhancements, and is a phenomenal tool to have access to as a partner. I haven't seen this type of stuff out of anything of the other storage systems."
"It helps to simplify storage. For most of our customers, when they move to Pure Storage, storage becomes an afterthought."
"It reduces space and the polar consumption. It also accelerates the application."
"It has good stability for our company."
"I find two features of Pure Storage most valuable. The first is the "safe mode" function, and the second is its simplicity."
"We're getting good performance, and the compression ratio is also very good in Pure Storage FlashArray."
"The best feature is consistently lower latency, even when IOPS crank up to over 75K. The product maintains submillisecond response time, which is incredible."
"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"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."
"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."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"It is on the expensive side."
"The software layer has to improve."
"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."
"Snapshots are not as easy to access as on a NetApp device."
"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."
"It only keeps one hour of real-time data without the ability to do deep analysis of each element."
"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."
"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."
"Technical support is bad. It'd grade them at 30% or 40%. The response time is terrible."
"Having something native in the Pure Storage ecosystem would make it integrated and in one single company, and we wouldn't have to work with multiple organizations."
"They are doing some stuff with containers and an object search. These could be improved, because containers is one of the main topics that we are talking with our customers about."
"The primary drawback is the cost, which can be prohibitive for small configurations."
"From a scalability perspective, it is a very small storage solution, so it's not very expandable."
"As long as they always improve on IOPS speed, that's all we're really looking for. The faster the storage can be the more we can do speed of application and speed of use."
"They could improve the price."
"Areas for improvement would be the financial operations. In the next release, I would like to see a NAS protocol included."
"I would like to see more detailed reporting on the data. However, it would be nice to know what are the exact VMs usage after deduplication and/or what that VMs actual latency and bandwidth is, outside of VMware."
Earn 20 points
DDN IntelliFlash is ranked 29th in All-Flash Storage with 11 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 174 reviews. DDN IntelliFlash is rated 7.4, while Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.2. 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 Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable". DDN IntelliFlash is most compared with VAST Data, Tintri VMstore T7000, NetApp AFF and Pure Storage FlashBlade, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and VMware vSAN.
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