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DDN IntelliFlash vs Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
15th
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
DDN IntelliFlash
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
29th
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Hitachi Virtual Storage Pla...
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
11th
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
NAS (5th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (3rd), Frame-Based Disk Arrays (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DDN IntelliFlash is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform is 3.2%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature
One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.
Anil Rahulwar - PeerSpot reviewer
Good customer service and support and suitable for large environments
It is very easy to install. Users don't need to remember anything while deploying IntelliFlash because everything will be taken care of by tech support. They can easily modify the installation or change the password with the help of the tech support. It is very easy to integrate IntelliFlash with other solutions. We have plugins that can be integrated with other solutions. It will require maintenance. It is the same as any other storage solution: updates and upgrades, firmware upgrades, and drive upgrades.
Ozair Amin - PeerSpot reviewer
A robust and dependable product that ensures a 100 percent data availability guarantee
We don't encounter any challenges in selling these Hitachi VSPs to our customers. These products boast an exceptionally robust architecture, making them highly reliable. This reliability is the key reason behind our lack of challenges. However, when we delve into the realm of competition, particularly in the unified storage sector, we do face certain challenges. This is primarily due to the usage of gateways in their storage solutions by some competitors. Unlike other competitors such as NetApp and Huawei, who do not employ gateways, we contend with challenges related to these gateways within the context of unified products. Many customers have been utilizing Hitachi Vantara for several years, relying on its storage capabilities. They appreciate its reliable roadmaps, which facilitate long-term planning. This makes it an effortless choice for customers to opt for Hitachi Vantara, as the product seamlessly accommodates updates and future changes. The key focal point of the Hitachi Vantara roadmap for our clients is centered around future upgrades. Typically, customers undergo tech refresh cycles approximately every five years. Consequently, when they embark on a tech refresh initiative, they tend to prioritize options that facilitate a smooth transition of data to alternative storage solutions. In this context, Hitachi Vantara leverages its external storage virtualization platform to ensure a seamless data migration process. This approach proves to be highly advantageous for our customers, and it stands as a primary reason for their choice to engage with Hitachi Vantara's offerings. Our customers are highly satisfied with their choice to acquire Hitachi products and services. I have not observed any of our customers shifting away from the Hitachi brand. I would recommend Hitachi Vantara 100 percent of the time to others. There are tools that assist us in accessing the IOPS per second and latencies of Hitachi Vantara systems. One such tool is the CPK tool, accessible through the Hitachi Vantara portal. Whenever we configure a product and a customer requests information about the IOPS and latencies, we can provide them with a report from the portal. This report includes details about reads, writes, IOPS, and sequential operations, offering a comprehensive overview of the IOPS performance that Hitachi Vantara offers. The combination of low latency and high performance has consistently assisted customers in improving their production and enhancing their working experience. It also aids them in easily managing the product, giving them time to expand their knowledge and plan for the future, rather than dealing with storage-related issues. The cost comparison of IOPS between our solutions and those of competitors is favorable at present, but this wasn't always the case. In the Pakistani market, Huawei used to be highly competitive. However, our current partnership with Hitachi has allowed us to pose a strong challenge to Huawei. Additionally, when considering products from NetApp, EMC, and even IBM, Hitachi remains highly competitive. Hitachi offers flexible media options to support the consolidation of multiple uses within the same platform which is important to our customers. Most of our customers utilize Unified Storage, employing a two-tier storage approach that includes both NVMe and SSDs. However, current trends indicate a shift in customer preferences towards NVMe over SAAS or SSDs due to the heightened reliability and increased cost-effectiveness of NVMe technology. This transition is driving many customers to adopt a comprehensive NVMe solution. Nonetheless, a substantial number of large customers still adhere to the two-tier storage model. For their primary tier, they employ NVMe drives, while for the secondary tier, they opt for NFS drives or a SAAS-based large-scale service. The integration of various use cases into a unified platform to facilitate the transformation of data into business insights is highly valuable. We receive input from our customers regarding their workloads. Based on the nature of these workloads and their intended use for storage – whether for ERP solutions, archives, or backup purposes – we recommend the appropriate storage type. These steps outline our process for evaluating the intended storage workload. Following this workload assessment, we suggest either NAS Unified Storage or Document Storage solutions. In the portal, there is a tool that enables us to calculate Hitachi's guaranteed effective capacity. It is quite straightforward for customers to comprehend and identify the effective capacity ratio. This is because many customers in Pakistan are already familiar with and using effective capacity ratios. Explaining the concept of effective capacity to customers is not a challenging task. Customers typically appreciate the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform due to its efficiency, easy product manageability, and product reliability, all of which offer significant benefits to the customers. This is crucial, especially in sectors like banking, where any breach or downtime could lead to substantial losses for customers. The uninterrupted operation of storage is paramount. This substantial benefit not only ensures customer satisfaction but also underscores the value derived from data utilization. Hitachi's adaptive data reduction technology assists in decreasing our client's storage footprint by around 50 percent. The majority of our customers were using storage from various vendors. We consolidated this storage into a single system using Hitachi Vantara.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"The solution is scalable."
"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."
"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"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 has reduced our electricity usage by reducing the amount of disks needed for the virtual environment."
"It performed great originally, and when it performed great, it was awesome."
"We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"It provides a combination of all the protocols that you need, without losing deduplication and compression."
"EasyTier/hotcaching: Valuable because it allows greater performance than standard SAS disks"
"High performance and ease-of-management are the most valuable features."
"It's very fast. We were seeing read latencies of less than one millisecond. It is robust."
"What I like best about Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G Series is that it's a fast storage solution. It also has reliable models. The sales support is also good for this product. Even the pricing for it is good."
"It's best features are its reliability and stability."
"The hybrid array provides scaleable, predictable, high performance with no capacity constraints."
"The solution is very user-friendly in terms of maintenance and configuration. It's also possible to connect the solution to other storage management solutions."
"It's a state of the art solution in storage systems. High-availability and performance are the strongest aspects of these machines."
"It is the most stable high-end solution in this area."
"This is a good product with high capabilities and high reliability."
"The product provides a good storage space."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"They need to offer better integration for a virtual platform to enable you to create hyper-converged solution."
"In future releases, I look forward to more AI features."
"It only keeps one hour of real-time data without the ability to do deep analysis of each element."
"In the proxy section you can’t choose a user account and password, so it is not allowed at the moment to go out, if customer has such constellation."
"Snapshots are not as easy to access as on a NetApp device."
"We had just one small stability problem with power flapping and it did not start up again automatically. We had to access service ports and manually restart the storage processors."
"Technical support is bad. It'd grade them at 30% or 40%. The response time is terrible."
"It's somewhat scalable, but maybe not so much as some of the competition."
"In the next version I would like to see additional features like artificial intelligence and an increase in the amount of data it can store."
"The Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform faces challenges when it comes to features like deduplication and compression. Enabling these features can lead to processor overload, resulting in performance degradation, especially under high loads."
"The software has always been lagging a bit compared to the newer features. It usually takes a cycle for it to catch up."
"One improvement I am hoping for in the next release is unified storage."
"The pricing is high, but the product is good. Additional features like data duplication might make it even better."
"The solution is priced higher than its competitors."
"For the support windows to work, maybe they have to upgrade the firmware of the VSP. They changed the hardware or the disk. I don't know if it was the port blade they changed or a VM for a memory cache. Also, replacing the old target with the processor target would be fine. The old equipment is very easy to manage, and I don't have any bad commentary."
"In terms of what could be improved, it could use a better, faster web console and other consoles. It is so boring waiting, waiting and waiting for it to refresh."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"The product is expensive."
"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."
"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."
"I think we pay around 100 grand per year for three arrays or four arrays."
"I recommend the full bundle software in order to have all the functionality. It is more expensive to purchase it one by one."
"The pricing we get is very competitive when compared to other vendors. Hitachi is working on their licensing model and it is improving but can be irksome when many different items are not bundled or enterprise size."
"The cost price of this product is better than its competitors."
"Architecture-wise, it's actually at a competitive price point. It is not cheap."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"It is expensive. Everything is included in the license. There is no additional cost."
"The main difference between Hitachi and other vendors is the cost. At the time that we bought the solution, it was the best option but the price, compared to other vendors, is a little high."
"The costs were primarily in line with every other vendor at the time."
"It is cheap. It is not very expensive. If you decide to expand the system, the cost is pretty low as compared to other vendors, such as Dell."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Real Estate/Law Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IntelliFlash?
It is a bit cheaper than other products, 10% to 20% cheaper.
What needs improvement with IntelliFlash?
DDN IntelliFlash should improve in terms of sales. In future releases, I look forward to more features about AI and M...
What is your primary use case for IntelliFlash?
We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways. They have large scalability and use more th...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform?
For NVMe storage, the pricing is reasonable compared to competitors in India. However, for entry-level SAN storage or...
What do you like most about Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform E990?
The product's reliability has been crucial for our company's operations.
What needs improvement with Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform E990?
The interface management and monitoring need improvement. Although I receive emails from Hitachi Virtual Storage Plat...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
Tegile, IntelliFlash N-Series, IntelliFlash T-Series, IntelliFlash HD-Series
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series, 5000 Series, E Series, N Series, G Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Bank of Stockton, Barnsley College, Boyes Turner, Brigham Young University
Turkcell, Owens Corning, Region Nord, Net Credit Financial Group (NFC Group), Russian Railways
Find out what your peers are saying about DDN IntelliFlash vs. Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.