We performed a comparison between Pure Storage FlashArray 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."The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"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 most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"The ease of management is one of the most valuable features of this solution. I would have also said that it's pretty fast but now our SQL servers are starting to beat it up pretty bad."
"We consume less physical storage because of the solution’s deduplication and compression."
"The connections are a lot faster than what we had in the past. One InfiniBand does what we did on all of our Fibre Channels."
"It is always out of the box, and ready to use."
"The initial setup is very straightforward. You simply plug it in and turn it on."
"The first year, we started out with one or five terabytes and it took what was 20 terabytes of storage down to less than one terabyte."
"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."
"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."
"The simplicity of it."
"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."
"If you buy the solution for its specific purpose it will work well."
"It is very easy to scale up SolidFire."
"The quality of service for minimum iOS, to maximum iOS in a multi-terminal environment is very powerful. The SQL service feature is the best part of SolidFire."
"The system efficiency is excellent overall."
"The scalability and being able to implement it quickly."
"The dashboard is such that you don't need to be a storage expert to administer it."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."
"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"We need better data deduplication."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"I would like a feature to integrate with external or cloud solutions. For example, if I want to use this storage for a backup from the cloud, I want to have integration with the cloud vendors, such as Microsoft, Oracles, or Amazon. It could be available as an API to allow seamless integration. Additionally, the solution could improve by having native integration with a cloud provider, such as VMware or Microsoft, this would reduce the need to use third-party solutions to complete the task."
"We have not seen a reduction in our TCO nor have we seen ROI."
"The credentials on the iSCSI interface are only available to type in with the Chrome browser, and not with the Firefox browser."
"When we were doing some tests, we found that there was an I/O freeze when they were switching the controller."
"The file functionality could be better."
"The connectivity needs improvement. You do not have the possibility to have a file and block connectivity at the same time on the same machine. It has limited ability to do so."
"The data reduction that we had initially anticipated when we bought Pure and we move over, is way lower than the expected reduction. It depends on the workloads, of course. But that has been a challenge at times."
"We understand that they're thinking about it, but one of the things that would be nice is if they added some basic file-level capabilities to the platform. The idea is that they would run a basic NFS or CIF share from the controllers. FlashBlade is the powerhouse for File and Object storage, but if you don't need all that power, a lightweight file function would make FlashArrays more versatile."
"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."
"When you set up the nodes, we have to serial into each one of these nodes to configure the IP ranges. It's still very easy, but it's time consuming."
"We are looking for, potentially, on the Active IQ reporting side, to do reporting based on the datastore. Right now, I can report on the whole SolidFire, or I can report on just a certain datastore or a volume. I'd like to take all of my VDI infrastructure, which as an example would be multiple datastores."
"I would like to see integration with the cloud, number one. Being able to spin SolidFire in the cloud."
"You don't have business continuity with SolidFire. I think it could be a nice feature to have in the future."
"The technical support is really bad and has to be improved."
"We had some false positives, power supplies failing, and that's really been about it. We had a couple of glitches during some upgrade processes but nothing that was really concerning to us."
"The tool should improve its initial cost which is expensive compared to other products."
Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 174 reviews while SolidFire is ranked 19th in All-Flash Storage with 33 reviews. Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.2, while SolidFire is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable". 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". Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and VMware vSAN, whereas SolidFire is most compared with NetApp AFF, Dell PowerStore and VMware vSAN. See our Pure Storage FlashArray vs. SolidFire report.
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