What is our primary use case?
I had four or five Flash Arrays. I used it primarily for virtualization and video media, depending on the workload.
What is most valuable?
It's simple to use. Upgrading is easy, as is the user interface. The connectivity is simple.
The performance of the product is phenomenal.
Pure was open to be checked out by any observability platform. It integrates well with Splunk, for example.
Its single management pane of glass and dashboard are excellent. At first, it was hard to get used to since I was used to other types of dashboards. However, once I figured it out, it was great. It was very easy to work with.
The benefits were realized right away. Between the flash array and the compression, you can really see how good it is. Our databases run a lot better now.
Pure hasn't helped us decrease our storage footprint. However, I was at a company that demanded storage when I was using it. We had different solutions for different storage needs. We always needed more storage for video, for example. The capacity was great in that sense.
When I used Pure, I worked in an environment that was 24/7. Everything we ever built was designed to be damn near bulletproof. I wasn't dependent on a single unit at any point. Everything we did had to be doubled, tripled, quadrupled up. Sometimes, multiple sites with multiple doubles based on the requirements. We've never had downtime.
The evergreen architecture is great. You can interchange things and move up. That never happens with other storage solutions.
What needs improvement?
Sometimes you don't realize that the capacity on offer is actually because of compression and all those things. It's just not as visible as it is on a NetApp or some other platform. You don't get the full view. You get the view that they give you, which is fine, but you don't get the full view. You don't get the nuts and bolts. Once you dig in and you learn how to read it, then it makes sense. However, when I first started, it didn't make sense to me.
For large storage needs, it is expensive. When we got too big, we didn't go for more Pure, we went with Isilon, since we were working into the petabytes range.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for three to four years.
How are customer service and support?
I've contacted technical support to run upgrades. They are professional, easygoing, and answer me on time. They know their stuff. I've never had issues. I can contact the right people directly; I never had to roam around looking for someone. Sometimes it will take some time for someone to get back to me once I put in a ticket.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used HP Nimble. That was a full all-flash array. The difference between Nimble and Pure was that with Pure, the upgrade process had to be done by tech support, which I didn't mind at all. In the Nimble, it was just a file, and I could upgrade it. Upgrade-wise, Nimble was better. Beyond that, they were pretty on par with each other.
How was the initial setup?
I have a lot of experience with Pure and find the solution easy to deploy.
The only real maintenance is upgrading. There isn't a whole lot we need to worry about. It's one of the easier solutions to deploy with the least amount of failures. Things seldom went wrong.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pure is not cheap. Of course, cost isn't everything. If you can buy a really cheap piece of hardware, however, when it comes to being able to get data, doing upgrades, navigation, and all kinds of stuff, you spend more time and effort trying to do that than just doing the work and letting Pure handle a lot of this stuff. So, you can pay it upfront or later. One way or another, you're going to pay for it.
Now, everything is coming down in price since there's more need and competition. I don't see a huge difference in the market. Everything is comparable, size-wise, and everything else is comparable in cost. Storage is storage. It's going to cost you no matter what. That said, those features, those extra things that they put out there, those extra parts are really where the expenditure really comes from.
What other advice do I have?
I'm a customer and end-user.
If a company has the money and they want to do it, I don't understand why they wouldn't. From an administrator's perspective, not from a business point of view, it's great. However, users need to check the numbers.
From an administrator perspective, they handle the upgrades, they do all these things - you don't have to do it. That's a whole lot of time you don't have to spend. For the performance, you get better monitoring. You don't have to spend extra time, money, and effort getting an extra monitoring solution. You can get that from them. Observability and monitoring are extremely important when it comes to this. Pure gives you a great way of connecting it to anything and getting information. The API works great.
I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. The only issue is it is really expensive.
*Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.