NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs SolidFire comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and SolidFire 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.
To learn more, read our detailed NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. SolidFire Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"I never have to worry about its performance or if it is the root cause of an issue.""The most valuable feature of the Pure Storage Flash Array is the blazing fast monitoring.""The job of support for the storage engineers dramatically changed. We know more quickly the automation of the provisioning. We can now focus on things that bring more value to the company than just managing storage.""The most valuable feature is its speed.""The top-tier support and reliable storage are the most valuable features of this solution.""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.""The most valuable feature is it never goes down. We can expand and create volumes.""The stability of Pure Storage is very very good."

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"The main advantage of this solution is performance.""The management of it is very simple. that is the most valuable feature.""The speed is the most valuable feature.""The replication and mirroring features are very good.""Some of the valuable features include MetroCluster switchover, in terms of disaster recovery, it is easy to use, and flexible.""The management software is very good.""Rapid deployment, easy integration management and cloning of areas.""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."

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"It is very easy to scale up SolidFire.""Templates are already predefined for it. If you're coding it up, it will take two days. You can pick up a template right there from the API, and it just works for you. Implementation done in 10 minutes.""It's got full API functionality and the performance is pretty steady.""Being able to provide quality of service as promised.""SolidFire has seamless performance for the nodes and extensions. I also like the tool’s scalability. The product’s performance does not get affected when we scale either up or down. This is not the case with other products.""We can add a node, we add compute, we add storage, and we've had really good luck with that.""SolidFire provides seamless performance across your storage system when you need to scale up. Other storage systems do not do that.""Overall performance of the solution."

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Cons
"If they could make it cheaper, that would be something.""It's not so scalable. It's got moderate scaling capabilities right now. The clustering technology needs a bit of work, they need to improve that.""A minor issue that comes to mind is that, every once in a while, a hard drive will go bad.""Currently, the solution fails to support file screening.""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.""With scalability, I have run into a little problem with our last upgrade. There were some undocumented limitations to the number of drives that our controller could run on. So, instead of putting in a new data pack as we had anticipated, we had to keep adding and removing to get up to the capacity that we needed to be. What should have been a one day process (or a few hours) turned into a month and a half process.""Pure Storage FlashArray could improve some aspects. There are certain features that are good and there are some features that I see some issues with at the technical level. Those issues are related to replication. They need to resolve those issues, which I have already highlighted to the Pure team. Additionally, there are some issues in the active cluster that could improve.""The system has dual controllers but does not have a high level of resiliency built-in."

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"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.""Things like the FlexClones, SnapVault, SnapMirror, all of that. Some of it's available on the EF series, but we like what we have in the FAS system.""Its pricing should be better. Its price is competitive, but they need to improve the pricing. They have different licensing models, which they need to improve. My expectation was cloud integration, which they have, but it is a different license. Therefore, people cannot enjoy it. If I want to use it, I need to pay extra. There is a cost involved for everything, but it should reach everyone. It is similar to having a Rolls-Royce, but you need to pay extra for the key. If you want the key, you need to pay.""I would like to shrink it more, if we can. The smaller, the better.""The solution's technical support is not as good as it is supposed to be since you have to push them to get support.""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.""The initial setup phase of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is not straightforward and needs improvement.""I would like to have the ability to replicate data between All Flash and other NetApp storage systems."

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"This solution would be improved if it were made to be more compatible with other products.""The upgrade process could be better.""The inclusion of more protocols and interfaces would make it easier to integrate with other products.""They could do a file-based NAS: SolidFire NAS-based. It's probably not its niche, but that is our direction, not to use block, and it's block. Solid state block is what it is.""The user interface needs to be improved. Much of the client feedback involves comments such as "Oh, it's hard to navigate through."""Though it is a stable solution, its users may face some security issues at times...The security provided by the solution is one area that can be improved.""The tool should improve its initial cost which is expensive compared to other products.""It would be good to provide administrative access at the root level to be able to do things with the system, if need be."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "We feel that the pricing is fair and the licensing process was easy for both."
  • "There is always room for negotiation."
  • "The price was slightly higher than others, but competitive, if you consider all the other features that you get from it."
  • "It is a more expensive solution, but it is worth it. You are getting what you paid for."
  • "For pricing, you have to take into account their performance on deduplication and compression in a $/GB comparison."
  • "We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO)."
  • "It is a cheaper solution."
  • "Pure Storage is all-flash, so this sometimes tends to make it a bit more expensive in the beginning."
  • More Pure Storage FlashArray Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It's a lot cheaper than what the other vendors have for the same type of environment. It saves us money."
  • "Cheaper pricing is always good. NetApp has been doing everything the right way. They've been figuring out things really well, going in the right direction."
  • "It's a way to get relatively low-cost, very high-performance, low-latency block storage as a point solution."
  • "The price point for EF is considerably lower than the alternatives."
  • "he price point that we're getting is very competitive in the market. Since we are buying in such a large quantity, they gave us a huge discount."
  • "The pricing of this solution is competitive with other vendors here in Egypt."
  • "The pricing is comparable with other competitors and similar in mid-range solutions, and for high range solutions, it would depend on our requirements or needs."
  • "Adding more capacity will increase the cost."
  • More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "We would probably use SolidFire more, except we're getting more bang for our buck with our purchases of ONTAP right now, and the deal we made with NetApp, so it's more of just a cost decision"
  • "The price of this solution is more expensive than others."
  • "Based on what I heard from other people, its price was on the higher side."
  • "On a scale where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the solution between three and four. It is an expensive solution."
  • "It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for what you get."
  • More SolidFire Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure… more »
    Top Answer:We consume less physical storage because of the solution’s deduplication and compression.
    Top Answer:We have customers who use a three-year or five-year license. We also have customers who use Evergreen.
    Top Answer:Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market.
    Top Answer:If one is cheap and ten is expensive, then I'd rate the pricing a three.
    Top Answer:The only major drawback is the replication between EF-Series units. Both the EF-series and NetApp are marketing this… more »
    Top Answer:The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance… more »
    Top Answer:It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for… more »
    Top Answer:There is room for improvement with a focus on creating a centralized storage system, functioning similar to AWS. This… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series
    Learn More
    Overview

    Pure Storage FlashArray is the world’s first enterprise-class storage array that runs exclusively on the nonvolatile memory express (NVMe) protocol for memory access and storage. It represents a totally state-of-the-art type of storage technology. It offers users shared accelerated storage that delivers cutting-edge features in the realms of performance, simplicity, and consolidation. Pure Storage is fresh and modern today and will be for the next decade. Without forklift upgrades or planned downtime, Pure Storage takes the work out of storage ownership and delivers unprecedented customer satisfaction.

    Pure Storage FlashArray is built with simplicity and reliability in mind. The solution can be implemented and optimized in hours, as opposed to other similar solutions that can take days. It has no moving parts, which removes areas where it could potentially be vulnerable to suffering errors. It is highly stable and gives users the ability to manage system shutdowns in a way that  prevents data loss.

    Benefits of Pure Storage FlashArray

    Some of the benefits of using Pure Storage FlashArray include:

    • A much higher level of speed than similar pieces of technology. Pure Storage FlashArray maximizes the speed at which data can be transferred while at the same time minimizing system latencies that might slow the transfer down. Additionally, it offers users quick memory read and data access speeds.

    • A higher bang for your buck in terms of the storage capabilities you get for the money you pay. They are smaller in size than more standard storage technologies, but they offer flash memory, which enables users to store larger amounts of data than the current standard.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Pure Storage FlashArray is a highly effective piece of storage technology which stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its overall robustness and the value that it offers by way of its reliability and ease of use. It provides users with many valuable features that allow them to maximize what they can do with this solution. Pure Storage FlashArray’s reliability and ease of use make it a highly valuable solution. 

    PeerSpot user Prabakaran K., a technical consultant at Injazat Data Systems, notes the robustness of this solution when he writes, "FlashArray has many valuable features. It's very user-friendly and it has high availability, so there is comparatively less downtime. During maintenance, there is no shutdown procedure, so you can directly power off the Array and manage the shutdown process without any data loss, which is a unique feature. Managing replication and data migration is also very easy."

    PeerSpot user Jason D., a cloud solutions architect at a tech services company, notes three features that make this solution valuable when he writes, "We've had different types of storage, and three things of this solution are valuable. The first one is its outstanding performance. The second one is its stability. In the about three years that we've had it, we've had component failures, but we never had a service interruption or any data loss. The third one, which is really critical, is that it is super easy to use in terms of provisioning, storage, and managing the arrays. I'm able to maintain a multi-site environment with a couple of dozen arrays with a single mid-level storage admin."

    The NetApp EF560 all-flash array is an all-SSD storage system for applications that demand extremely high levels of performance and reliability. Requiring just 2U of rack space, the EF560 all-flash array combines extreme IOPS, microsecond response times, and up to 12GBps of bandwidth with leading, enterprise-proven availability features.

    SolidFire delivers all five core elements needed to deliver newfound storage agility to your next generation data center and beyond. With SolidFire you can deploy new applications and capabilities faster, provide more agile and scalable infrastructure, increase application performance and predictability, enable automation and end-user self-service and raise operational efficiency and reduce cost.

    Sample Customers
    Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
    RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation
    California Public Utilities Commission, RFA, 1&1, Ultimate Software , Endicia, ezVerify, MercadoLibre, Sungard Availability Services, ServInt, Elastx, Hosted Network, Colt, Crucial, iWeb, Datapipe, Databarracks
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Healthcare Company12%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization32%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company23%
    Manufacturing Company15%
    Media Company15%
    Energy/Utilities Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company21%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider27%
    Retailer20%
    Pharma/Biotech Company7%
    Transportation Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm21%
    Computer Software Company18%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Real Estate/Law Firm6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise57%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise41%
    Large Enterprise42%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business28%
    Midsize Enterprise26%
    Large Enterprise46%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise55%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise53%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise65%
    Buyer's Guide
    NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. SolidFire
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. SolidFire and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is ranked 23rd in All-Flash Storage with 38 reviews while SolidFire is ranked 19th in All-Flash Storage with 33 reviews. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is rated 8.6, while SolidFire is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays writes "A storage solution that offers great stability, resilience, and support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolidFire writes "A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance". NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is most compared with NetApp AFF, Dell PowerStore, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Huawei OceanStor Dorado and HPE Primera, whereas SolidFire is most compared with NetApp AFF, Dell PowerStore and VMware vSAN. See our NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. SolidFire 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.