We performed a comparison between Dell Unity XT and NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
"Cost, racial per terabyte, and speed is why we chose PureStorage. It was no brainer."
"Pure Storage FlashArray's overall speed is its most valuable feature."
"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."
"The security operating system is its most valuable feature because it's very simple, easy to use, and operate. You don't have to do very serious training to operate this equipment. It's user-friendly and pretty straightforward."
"The amount of throughput that we're getting is really nice."
"The initial setup is very straightforward. You simply plug it in and turn it on."
"Simplicity and reliability are the most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray."
"This solution is very scalable."
"The most valuable aspects of this solution are its stability, performance, and ease of updating."
"We are happy with the way we have Dell EMC Unity XT configured."
"Its quick integration with VMware. The ability to stand up a data store in one place, where you don't have to go and rescan for the data store through the vCenter Client, as well as SMB shares. This ended up being a big selling point for us."
"Quick Snapshots and cloning are key features."
"It is simple to use and easy to manage. We don't touch it after we set it up."
"It is a workhorse and will run even demanding workloads."
"It is easy to manage. Managing it, I get alerts if there are any type of issues. I had a hard drive go bad, which had never caused any issues. Dell EMC contacted me, and said, "We are a shipping a new one out." My response was, "Why?" He told me that hard drive was bad. So, I went and looked, and it was. This was almost immediate. I never even knew anything had happened."
"We put the Unity on one of the file servers and the backup performance improved quite a lot."
"Its performance is most valuable. This solution is much faster than other as well as older storage solutions. The performance of the system is very good. We are getting 50 times better experience than the older storages. We are using AFF 300. It also has native cloud integration and most of the features."
"Rapid deployment, easy integration management and cloning of areas."
"The hardware and software of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are easy for us to use."
"Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its speed."
"I like the performance aspect of EF Series. It basically provides everything that we are looking for as a solution, very low latency and very high performance."
"Compared to Dell Unity XT, what I see as an advantage in NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is the fact that it is more scalable...The performance of the product is good."
"The solution allows us to segregate one storage unit from another."
"Most of our upgrades have not been as smooth as they should have been."
"I would like to see them lower the costs."
"There are many features which need to be added, particularly on the replication side."
"Just some nit picky stuff, like allowing servers and volumes to be grouped. Therefore, it would easier to work with them in the GUI."
"A minor issue that comes to mind is that, every once in a while, a hard drive will go bad."
"Part of our company works on Dell EMC because Pure Storage did not have synchronous applications when we were purchasing our products."
"In terms of the future, I have been excited by some of the copy data management stuff that they're talking about building into the environment. There are feature sets where I've done a lot of automation work. So, I am always looking forward to extensions of their API. They're also talking about a phone home centralized analytics database being used as a centralized management console with a list of new cloud features, but this doesn't seem finalized."
"We need to add more storage in Pure Storage FlashArray with the cluster mode activated for us to have better performance."
"We had one incident with a memory leak that led to controller reboot. Although it had no impact, when such things happens the storage should be more aware of it, send alerts, and propose corrective actions."
"Dell EMC's competitor has a clustering technology. In the next release, it would be nice if they could build that into the product."
"The Host LUN ID is sequential by access in the hosts. When one LUN needs access by many hosts (for cluster purposes), in some cases the Host LUN ID remains different on each host."
"Its replication technology could be better."
"The initial installation is straightforward and took approximately one hour. However, the full process was not as simple as IBM."
"On the data domains - for the Unity product, but specifically for data domain - I would like a much easier interface for managing, for actually going in and having one place where I could get all of the different parts of the overall unit. And I would also like to be able to identify individual disks a lot more easily."
"They should update to the cloud."
"The support team is well-versed in the AMG solution, having received comprehensive training. They also boast strong partnerships in both VNAM and Korea. The system's user-friendliness is a primary consideration in their choice of solution, emphasizing the importance of service. They place a strong emphasis on service, occasionally requiring approvals. However, with full installations, they have achieved almost uniformity. Their storage approach differs from a consolidated business-based model; instead, it is application-centric. Their investment in solutions is geared towards specific needs, such as the banking or information system, acquiring smaller storage units individually."
"We have used IBM previously. We found that the storage from IBM was poor and we chose NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays because it can scale very easily."
"I would like to see higher-capacity drives, as they come out; I have heard that 15 TB are out on a different NetApp series. Getting those on the EFs would be nice."
"A little more manageability, a simpler management interface. It's not necessarily that it's way overly complex. It's just that it's not as easy as the FAS series."
"I’d like to see bigger, faster, better hardware, of course. I think that is the way the hardware is trending anyway; bigger, faster CPU, better software, fewer bugs, all that stuff. T"
"I would like to shrink it more, if we can. The smaller, the better."
"The initial setup phase of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is not straightforward and needs improvement."
"The dashboard could be simplified."
"I would like to have the ability to replicate data between All Flash and other NetApp storage systems."
More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Pricing and Cost Advice →
Dell Unity XT is ranked 4th in All-Flash Storage with 186 reviews while NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is ranked 23rd in All-Flash Storage with 38 reviews. Dell Unity XT is rated 8.4, while NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Dell Unity XT writes "Easy to set up with good data compression technology and useful deduplication". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays writes "A storage solution that offers great stability, resilience, and support". Dell Unity XT is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and HPE 3PAR StoreServ, whereas NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Huawei OceanStor Dorado and HPE Primera. See our Dell Unity XT vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays report.
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