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 system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"The solution is scalable."
"The most valuable features are the speed and performance for our transactional workloads for our databases."
"This solution helps accelerate demanding enterprise applications. VMware workloads, the database, and Oracle Solaris are hosted on AFF, which means that our primary priority workloads are on AFF and that the secondary ones are on FAS. That includes the SAN national cloud."
"The tool has lowered latency."
"We can go through and do an upgrade without worrying about any issues with the process"
"We found AFF systems very competitive in terms of performance, storage efficiency, feature richness, and scalability."
"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."
"The speed is important; no more problems caused by high latency."
"Data efficiency is the most valuable feature because of the dedupe and compression."
"It simplifies the overall management. We don't have to worry about storage anymore."
"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."
"Technical support is good."
"Pure is simple to set up and manage on a day-to-day basis."
"The speed of the Pure FlashArray is very, very fast and nothing in the market can compare to it."
"Most of the problems that we had in the past with the performance in IOPS have disappeared. It has been a great improvement for our customers' services."
"The initial setup was really straight forward."
"It allows engineers to focus on other things rather than doing the more manual tasks. It automates tasks, so the ease of use is extreme. It simplifies the storage."
"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."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."
"It is on the expensive side."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"The software layer has to improve."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"There is room for improvement with the user interface. There are a few things that cannot be done in the GUI. We do a lot of things through the CLI, but that's grown out of a lack of ability to do them in the GUI. An example is QTrees. You can manage them within the GUI, but the GUI is missing a few options."
"We should be able to manage NetApp AFF as per the desired usage and needs."
"Better stability, not releasing features until they are fully functional, or at least giving us a software train that doesn't add them until they are fully functional and proven."
"NetApp AFF needs to focus more on block storage. It has to focus on high-end, performance-driven applications."
"The upgrade process could be a lot quicker, but it's still good as it is. The failovers and things like that are harder than expected."
"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."
"We have had customers asking about S3 support for a while now. I heard that is coming in one of the next versions. So, I would like to see S3 targeted support on the FAS system."
"The product has size limitations on fax volume. They have increased from 100 to 300, which is still less than other vendors. Or flex groups are not supported."
"I like what they're doing, but some of my customers complain that they do not have all the bells and whistles and knobs to fine-tune workloads that some of the competitors have. In my opinion, that's good. All customers don't have dedicated storage gurus, and they can get themselves into trouble if they fine-tune too many of those high-performance knobs, but they do get knocked down. Pure Storage takes a hit in the minds and opinions of some of the customers because they cannot customize things as much as compared to a legacy storage provider's appliance such as NetApp, Dell EMC, or even HPE. I personally think 95% of my customers are better off letting the system fine-tune itself. That was something that you needed to do 12 or 15 years ago, but now with all-flash, the technology can handle what it needs to handle. Customers just end up shooting themselves in the foot if they are tweaking too many default settings."
"The system has dual controllers but does not have a high level of resiliency built-in."
"We did have one hiccup with the integration of vCenter. When we were installing Pure Storage, we were using vCenter 6.7, which defaults to the HTML5 Web Client. The current plugin for Pure Storage doesn't show up in that client at all. You have to go and use the legacy FlexFlash client to see the Pure Storage plugin in vCenter."
"We would like to see better troubleshooting aspects. It helps us if we can find out where the problem is. Right now, it's difficult. Sometimes it's difficult to pinpoint the issue. If they had more visibility and more troubleshooting feature built into the tool that would really help."
"The GUI is simplistic and basic. I feel like it's explanatory, but not enough, it needs a little more to it."
"This product has only two active controllers, whereas other solutions can have more. This is something that needs to improve."
"The internal garbage collection process has been fixed recently in some OS updates so it is more efficient but that could be just a little better."
"I would love to see a true one click upgrade solution. Right now, you have to click and schedule an appointment with Pure Storage to be able to upgrade. I would love for it to automatically download, install, and fall-over every controller as it updates."
NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 281 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 PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, VMware vSAN and NetApp FAS Series, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem, VMware vSAN and Dell Unity XT. See our NetApp AFF vs. Pure Storage FlashArray report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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