NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Previous Solutions

VP
CTO at acdc LED Ltd.

We’ve used a variety of storage solutions, including HPE 3PAR, HPE CBA, XP 12000, XP 20000, Hitachi VSP, Dell EMC, and IBM StoreWise, among others. However, currently, we mainly utilize IBM and Fujitsu storage systems, alongside NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. We don't use all of these simultaneously; we've transitioned from some and are presently focused on using IBM, Fujitsu, and NetApp products.

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it_user351147 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Systems Engineer IT Enterprise Infrastructure at PAREXEL

We used a traditional SAN array and replaced it with flash.

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Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Synergy Computers

As a solution provider, we don't use specific products ourselves, but sell them based on experience and knowledge. 

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Buyer's Guide
All-Flash Storage
March 2024
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp, Dell Technologies, Lenovo and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: March 2024.
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SS
System Administrator at a government with 201-500 employees

I have been using only NetApp in this company, and it is good. I also have experience with solutions from Hitachi, EMC, Dell, IBM, HP, and others.

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RP
Owner at FORE SOLUTIONS

I don't think NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays has advantages over Dell Unity XT because when I compare them technically, I feel Dell is better. When I sell five boxes of Dell, I sell one box of NetApp.

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it_user527328 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Unix Storage Group at Stony Brook Medicine

We wanted an all-flash array for our databases. We have a previous relationship with NetApp. We decided to just try it out, and it worked out.

Those actually were on a different vendor storage array. They were on SAS drives, and we moved it over to the all-flash from there.

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RS
Senior Server Network Enginner at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

XtremIO is a nice product, but it has so much more overhead. Deduplication involves a little bit more overhead than what the EF does. I kind of look at EF as a dragster as opposed to a road course racer. The EF just goes straight line. It does what it's supposed to do; not a lot of frills, but it does its job really well. XtremIO is a bit more tuned for a general-purpose workload; not so much speed. It's still flash, but the overhead on the XtremIO was more than what we need it for. The price point was better on the EF. You get more speed, better capacity, and better price. The EF was a better value.

The disadvantages of the XtremIO were the speed and the capacity. I think it was a very similar scale out for the XtremIO. It was very similar in size. It was a little bit smaller because there was more overhead; different metadata for the XtremIO. It required a little bit more controller size, and so on.

Also, it was a 4U brick versus a 2U brick. We basically get twice the capacity of two shelves for NetApp versus one brick from XtremIO. The scalability was one of the big features as well.

When selecting a vendor to work with, the one that provides the best value is the most important criteria; does it hit the most amount of needs that we have; once we determine what our requirements are, and how we go forward. What's the best for us? We may spend a little bit different money on something else, but that has to be of a specific need that we need to fit. Basically, what's the best value?

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it_user527178 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consulting Storage Engineer at Columbia HCA Healthcare

I requested it, but I didn't make the decision.

We knew we needed to invest in the EF series mostly because we have a lot of files, we have some CDOT systems that we have in there with the 8060s right now, and we knew that we had some environments where we're looking at XtremeIO and so on. We were trying to find something comparable to it and, honestly, within our company, there wasn't a whole lot of knowledge that there were more options.

I brought it up and said, "Hey what about these guys?" And they said something like, "Oh, they don't have it." And here it is. That was what brought it in. We were using XtremeIO and I wanted to move over to this, because of cost.

XtremeIO, when it got bought out by EMC, the cost went up and the support model for EMC is the same across all products. However, now it's even more, because you have to call EMC and then EMC points you over to a third party and it's troublesome.
The advantage of XtremeIO is the GUI system, which is extremely easy. It really is. It's based off of almost like the old XIV. The XIV system from IBM was an extremely easy GUI, just slide. It's almost like using a Windows system and they kind of ported that into the XtremeIO, which made it easier for that as far as the manageability side of it. However, as far as flexibility, it didn't have a whole lot there.

Besides NetApp and XtremeIO, we brought another one in-house and it didn't make it through the first stage. We pushed it and actually crashed it. You shouldn't see a flash crash but we did.

Reliability is the most important criteria for me when selecting a vendor to work with.

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OC
Assistant Engineer at a tech company with 51-200 employees

I would probably switch to one of our new HyperFlex environments, which includes everything that we need. Right now with NetApp, we have to manage the storage and computer networking separately. With the HyperFlex solution, we could manage all three components in one place: storage, computing, and networking. That would be much easier.

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EK
Senior Storage Engineer at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees

We were using ONTAP, a FAS system before, and we couldn't deliver the performance that was needed. We were missing our SLAs. We looked at some other solutions from other vendors and EF gave us the best performance, price, and value.

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it_user750591 - PeerSpot reviewer
Platform Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Nexsan. The requirements of the end user dictated we get a different system from what we already had. We're a big NetApp customer, so we like to stick with NetApp. I guess that's why we went with it. It was a customer requirement. They needed a different type of, cheaper, faster storage.

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it_user750729 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Engineer at Marq Solutions

Currently, all of our technology is on Legacy FAS systems that are end of life. We have taken the last one we can go to, and now, we have 20 sites and terabytes of data that we have to refresh and renew, so it is just a matter of time before we get to the next stage. In some instances, it is the HCI, and it other instances, it is the All Flash FAS, so it is not going to be a one-size fits all.

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it_user527274 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director Operations at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We were reaching the performance limits of what we could do with SAS at that time, and AFF wasn't really an option yet. We looked around and it was clear to me that I'd prefer to not go with another vendor. We had really good experience with FAS. I'd prefer to stay with a NetApp solution.

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YA
IT Engineer at Agiba Petroleum Co.

We did use another solution prior to this one, and we switched because of the technical support. It had originally started off quite good, but after a while, it was no longer good, which is why we switched.

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it_user527079 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Systems Admin at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

We have multiple hybrid solutions, but nothing pure flash like the EF. We have been using the hybrid solutions for five years. The trigger to moving to EF was that the cost of flash has come down, and the need for flash has gone up.

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it_user550305 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Manager at Pennwell Corp

This was a new initiative.

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it_user527082 - PeerSpot reviewer
Server Administrator at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

They were already using EF when I started.

I have not previously used a solution other than the FAS series.

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it_user352236 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Infrastructure Manager with 501-1,000 employees

No previous solution was used.

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it_user351156 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at Ahd Hellweg Data GmbH & Co. KG

We previously used HP EVA, which was slow and old. We switched from HP to NetApp because the customer got a 7-Mode FAS for a different situation and asked what he could do about the slow speed of his EVA. We recommended EF.

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it_user750573 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Administrator at a hospitality company with 5,001-10,000 employees

I don't think we were previously using a different solution. Our business was finally letting us spend some money on some good hardware and we decided to take a chance, I guess.

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it_user527343 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Storage Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

We go off a price list. We kind of figure out what best fits the needs of each site. We have hundreds of sites in US and Canada.

We just wanted the speed. Everybody wants better IOPS and that was basically the reason why we chose it, to have better speed. Our sites need to be up; they need to be running.

We previously used regular SATA and SAS shelves, strictly disk shelves and so on; no flash, no arrays, nothing like that.

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it_user1013601 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Engineer at ICTeam

Our client used another solution before but they found that the NetApp EF-Series is much faster when it comes to performance. And they saved a lot of money with the cost of the fast drives.

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it_user750588 - PeerSpot reviewer
It Team Lead at a tech services company

We were using the E2700 and had a lot of performance bound VMs, so that was the goal behind getting this solution.

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MY
IT Systems Engineer at Adaptive Solutions

We did not use another enterprise-level storage solution before this one. We switched to NetApp All-Flash arrays because of the high availability and the ability to assign specific margins of performance to individual workloads.

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Buyer's Guide
All-Flash Storage
March 2024
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp, Dell Technologies, Lenovo and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.