We performed a comparison between Dell Unity XT and NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: The main difference between the two products is speed. Dell EMC Unity XT users say the speed of the solution should be improved, while NetApp AFF users find the solution’s speed to be impressive.
"Having fast storage allows actual servers to perform in high capacity so we don't have slowdowns on our applications."
"Technical support has been amazing."
"The predictive performance analytics are good."
"The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is the all-flash storage performance, low latency, and efficiency of their de-duplication technology. Additionally, the ease of use is good compared to other storage systems. The features in data protection, snapshotting, and replication between data centers and sites are superior to other solutions."
"It's actually very stable"
"The amount of data that I have moved to it from legacy storage has enabled us to retire units that are three or four times the physical size."
"It does efficient work of storing data while still delivering the performance that you would normally expect from a higher priced solution."
"We also like the compactness, the small footprint. It takes up very little space in a data center and uses little power."
"It does great deduplication. From a storage perspective, we save money being able to dedupe right on the disk"
"Initial setup is a simple process."
"We have simplified it down to where we're using one storage pool inside the Unity, whereas on the VNX, we had multiple storage pools. This has simplified that aspect for us. It would depend on each organization. We're heavy into VMware and this ties into it so simply. It's made it a lot easier for us. I create a datastore inside Unity, it just shows up in VMware. I love that tie-in."
"The product has helpful local technical support."
"We like the way it integrates with our environment. These features help us use multiple soft applications. The new features of going off the grid and replicating really help us. They give us an advantage versus traditional storage resources."
"Quick Snapshots and cloning are key features."
"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."
"My storage team likes Unity's replication features. Three-site replication is a unique feature that EMC offers us."
"High availability"
"There are two compression technologies available within it, and they are valuable because they allow for significantly higher data storage capacity and the retention of a larger number of snapshots on the system."
"Switching to AFF has improved the performance of a lot of our virtual machines in a VMware environment. The number of support tickets that we receive has fallen to almost zero because of this, so it's been a real help for our virtual server support team."
"The scale up version of it is the most valuable feature. You can go to 24 nodes, which is very cool."
"We can go through and do an upgrade without worrying about any issues with the process"
"The tool's most valuable feature is SVM. I also like the speed and response of the filers."
"The most valuable features of the solution are speed, performance, and reliability."
"NetApp AFF is very good at cleaning up your storage."
"We would like more extended historical data to help with some of the capacity planning. This is something that we are asking for all the time. E.g., what was the historical performance of this particular volume? So, we would like more historicals."
"The price of this solution could be improved."
"I would rate this solution an eight. To make it a ten it would have to be a little cheaper."
"Pure Storage support could be a little better."
"It is a bit expensive."
"Pure Storage will have issues with positioning in the near future since its a relatively new company. For now, customers need a PoC to trust using the solution, as it can't stand on its brand name alone. They need to improve Pure Storage's marketing."
"I want to learn more about command line usage which I have not explored much yet. However, there are many automated solutions for repetitive tasks. I would like to see additional features like performance monitoring, configuring of alerts, and the customization of alert thresholds in the next release."
"Had some issues with Purity not being entirely compatible with VMware ESXi."
"Things that could be improved include one-to-many replication, data deduplication, and asynchronous Fibre Channel replication. It is asynchronous on iSCSI and I would like to have that on the Fibre Channel. Unisphere-wise, I have to log in to each Unity as a unique environment. In VNX, I logged in to the domain and I was logged in to every VNX. So that's missing."
"This solution could be improved by offering containerization. This is something many of my customers are looking for."
"I rate the scalability of Dell Unity XT a nine out of ten."
"Since Dell took over EMC, the support has been very bad. Before, the support was fine. Now, the support is slow or they don't react."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say its capacity and its connection."
"You can't use every feature, because it costs in performance. Therefore, you have to choose which features to use to achieve a better environment. That is why customers do not use every feature in Unity."
"Software updates have to be downloaded to the root of the device. This pushes the available space to 95% utilization."
"This is a tier-three solution and it gives us what we need for archiving and backups."
"We don't have many issues related to the appliance itself. In terms of the OS, we do get some hiccups here and there."
"I want an interface through ONTAP that look more like what it does for the E-Series with Santricity."
"Additional performance, additional data efficiencies, that's what everybody wants right now."
"The total cost of ownership has increased a little."
"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."
"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."
"Going forward, I would like improvement in the response latencies, capacity size, cache, and controller size."
"I would like to see aggregate level encryption in the next release. This is critical."
Dell Unity XT is ranked 4th in All-Flash Storage with 186 reviews while NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 280 reviews. Dell Unity XT is rated 8.4, while NetApp AFF is rated 9.0. 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 AFF writes "Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency". Dell Unity XT is most compared with Dell PowerStore, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem, HPE 3PAR StoreServ and Dell PowerMax NVMe, whereas NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, VMware vSAN, NetApp FAS Series and VAST Data. See our Dell Unity XT vs. NetApp AFF report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
I saw that you have doubts about what you chose. I have a lot of experience with the constructor, honestly I can recommend Dell EMC Unity XT All-flash which can guarantee you a ratio of 3:1 signed by Dell and you have to deploy all types of workload from block to file. You can also rely on the native cash and fast cache functionality for increasing application performance
This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended cost is decisively based on the Gartner magic quadrant storage 2020 Net app company and Dell EMC are leaders. But we can say NetApp is First in Queue.
One of the superiority NetApp working on NVMeOF
The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matters more than IOPS for your needs, Netapp AFF is the right choice. You can approach the max. Performance by equipping Unity with SSDs but maybe this costs more. I would recommend Netapp AFF all the time if your budget is ok.
They’re both great solutions and I’ve used both.
EMC is being VERY aggressive on pricing which may be the undoing of NetApp.
Differences are in the user interface mostly, they both do what they are designed to do in different ways.
I say, compare apples to apples on models and get them fighting on price.
You win.
First of all the decision should be taken looking at similar products in terms of capacity and performance.
I will show a few aspects helping the decision, comparing Unity Xt480f and AFF220 (both chosen by distributor to be in the price range for capacity):
1. Comparing 2 systems with the same capacity and performance: pricing is the first to look at:
1a. Cost per GB, war capacity and usable capacity (+Unity)
1b. Cost of adding capacity (+Unity)
1c. Cost of licensing per GB / per added capacity (+Unity all included)
1d. Cost of maintenance after initial contract (+Unity same for all life )
2. Comparison of CPU/MEM, we choose Unity XT because of better CPU cores/frequency and memory per controller
3. Percentage of space lost in various configurations. Our goal was to use Dynamic disk pools, available on Unity. Easier upgrades/downgrades.
4. If virtual volumes are considered, Unity has a VASA provider included in the controller, Netapp is using external VM.
5. Product lifecycle
6. Inline compression / deduplication, performance,
From the above 1=80%, 2=5%, 3=10%, 4+5=5%
We went to Unity XT480 where on the same budget we got 20% more usable flash capacity, while enough slots remain for future upgrades.
My experience was with DELL EMC Unity Hybrid Storage and it was amazing cost-wise. Are you sure you need an All-flash solution?
EMC definitely.