DDN IntelliFlash vs NetApp E-Series comparison

DataDirect Networks and NetApp are both solutions in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category. DataDirect Networks is ranked #12 with an average rating of 9.0, while NetApp is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.5. DataDirect Networks holds a 1.8% mindshare in N, compared to NetApp’s 2.9% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of DataDirect Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

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DDN IntelliFlash and NetApp E-Series compete in data storage solutions. DDN IntelliFlash outshines with its diverse performance capabilities, while NetApp E-Series is favored for its reliability.

Features: DDN IntelliFlash includes high scalability, mixed workload support, and efficient data reduction, offering versatility for different load demands. NetApp E-Series stands out with high-speed block-level storage, minimal latency, and suitability for bandwidth-intensive applications. This highlights DDN's flexibility against NetApp's speed.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: DDN IntelliFlash is noted for simplified management and intuitive deployment, ensuring a streamlined setup. NetApp E-Series provides straightforward deployment backed by prompt and knowledgeable customer support. Although both firms deliver effective customer service, DDN often has a faster deployment process, whereas NetApp prioritizes reliability.

Pricing and ROI: DDN IntelliFlash offers competitive setup costs and significant long-term ROI due to data optimization. NetApp E-Series may have higher initial costs but promises a strong ROI through sustained performance and lower maintenance over time, distinguishing DDN's cost-efficiency from NetApp's investment value.

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To learn more, read our detailed DDN IntelliFlash vs. NetApp E-Series Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. NetApp E-Series

December 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 4.0%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DDN IntelliFlash is 1.8%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp E-Series is 2.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	4.0%
NetApp E-Series	2.9%
DDN IntelliFlash	1.8%
Other	91.3%

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh

Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256

Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.

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Anil Rahulwar

Storage Engineer at Movate

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.

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Milan Budimir

IT-Techniker at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Have struggled with timely expert support and faced communication challenges during critical maintenance tasks

As an AZ3 technician with experience in that direction, when I call them, I do not call the first-level support as it is something I do not need. I call them because I am not able to resolve that mistake or when the behavior of the machine is not normal. If you need an auto support message from the customer machine, you can get them from the first level, but most of the time, they do not know what an auto support message is, and everything stops there. You have a few of them when you call, and when we are replacing something in NetApp E-Series. StorageGRID is different, but with NetApp E-Series, you need to grab information from the node that is actually down; in most cases, the node is not in loader. It is entirely gone. You can try to reseat it, maybe boot it up, but in most cases, when it is down, it stays down. You call support for that, and that is when you lose two or three hours.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

"The latency is good."

"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."

"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"High performance and ease-of-management are the most valuable features."

"We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"It has reduced our electricity usage by reducing the amount of disks needed for the virtual environment."

"EasyTier/hotcaching: Valuable because it allows greater performance than standard SAS disks"

"It provides a combination of all the protocols that you need, without losing deduplication and compression."

"It's very fast. We were seeing read latencies of less than one millisecond. It is robust."

"It performed great originally, and when it performed great, it was awesome."

More DDN IntelliFlash pros

"The Snapshot feature is actually widely used; it is a feature that only NetApp E-Series has and it is quite good."

"The product is easy to use."

"Customers go for the E Series if they need backup storage because it is cheap."

"The overall experience has been positive."

"If we select the best use case for NetApp E-Series based on its intended purpose, I would rate it a ten."

"My customers are satisfied with the performance."

Cons

"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."

"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."

"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."

"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."

"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."

"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"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."

"It only keeps one hour of real-time data without the ability to do deep analysis of each element."

"It's somewhat scalable, but maybe not so much as some of the competition."

"Technical support is bad. It'd grade them at 30% or 40%. The response time is terrible."

"Performance is horrible now. Our original intent was to buy new storage in about two years. But since it became a critical urgency for us, we decided to purchase a new one in two or three months."

"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."

More DDN IntelliFlash cons

"Getting through first level to second level takes two hours minimum."

"The solution must provide more training courses."

"With NetApp E-Series, when we are running active-active NAS4, sometimes due to either an issue or a bug, we experience failures. At least twice yearly, we have seen this issue. When it occurs, we lose critical systems such as MQ."

"Regarding error handling in NetApp E-Series, because it is a cost-effective but not an intelligent storage solution, the error handling is not sufficient."

"Though the performance is there, if NetApp wants to be competitive with the others, it must improve their business continuity."

"NetApp should add more production lines to the E series so we can make flexible solutions more easily."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"I recommend the full bundle software in order to have all the functionality. It is more expensive to purchase it one by one."

"I think we pay around 100 grand per year for three arrays or four arrays."

"The price is reasonable for NetApp E-Series."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Construction Company

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

21%

Comms Service Provider

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

No data available

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.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IntelliFlash?

It is a bit cheaper than other products, 10% to 20% cheaper.

See all answers

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...

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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...

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp E-Series?

The product is easy to use.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp E-Series?

Regarding scalability, I think there is no problem. While there is always room for improvement in any product, to my ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for NetApp E-Series?

We sell NetApp E-Series as engineered machines like FlexPod, which is used where high throughput and native storage p...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 19% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

VAST Data vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 31% of the time

NetApp AFF vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 11% of the time

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 8% of the time

Tintri VMstore T7000 vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 7% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 7% of the time

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Seagate Exos X Series vs NetApp E-Series

Compared 24% of the time

NetApp ASA vs NetApp E-Series

Compared 22% of the time

NetApp AFF vs NetApp E-Series

Compared 17% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs NetApp E-Series

Compared 11% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs NetApp E-Series

Compared 11% of the time

More NetApp E-Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

December 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash

January 2026

Download DDN IntelliFlash product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp E-Series

December 2025

Download NetApp E-Series product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

Tegile, IntelliFlash N-Series, IntelliFlash T-Series, IntelliFlash HD-Series

No data available

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Pure Storage

Western Digital through its IntelliFlash arrays delivers high-performance storage with a complete range of features and connectivity options, including inline compression and deduplication, application and VM consistent snapshots, replication, RAID, data encryption, VMware vCenter integration, and multi-protocol support for SAN (FC, iSCSI) and NAS (NFS, SMBv3). IntelliFlash arrays deliver high availability through dualredundant and hot-swappable components, active/active or active/passive controllers, non-disruptive software upgrades, eMLC flash, and proactive cloud-based monitoring, analytics, and intelligence. A RESTful API provides scripted or programmatic control.

DataDirect Networks

NetApp E-Series offers a flexible, high-performance storage solution ideal for handling intensive data requirements. Designed to optimize capacity and improve data availability, it supports diverse sector needs.

NetApp E-Series is a purpose-built system engineered to deliver fast, consistent performance. It is best utilized in environments requiring high-performance workloads where speed and efficiency are crucial. Users appreciate its reliability and scalability, which contribute to effective data management. The system is known for its efficient storage capabilities, providing robust data protection and seamless integration with existing infrastructure.

What are the key features of NetApp E-Series?

Scalability: Supports expansion to accommodate growing data needs seamlessly.
Performance: Delivers high-speed processing for demanding applications.
Integrations: Easily integrates with existing IT environments, enhancing operational efficiency.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Cost Efficiency: Offers competitive pricing with long-term savings through energy-efficient designs.
Reliability: Provides consistent uptime, minimizing disruptions and improving productivity.
Flexibility: Versatile deployment options cater to specific performance and capacity requirements.

NetApp E-Series is widely implemented across industries ranging from healthcare to finance, where it supports critical data-intensive applications. Its deployment in environments such as scientific research and media production highlights its capacity for handling high-speed data access and reliable performance.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Bank of Stockton, Barnsley College, Boyes Turner, Brigham Young University

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. NetApp E-Series

December 2025

Free Report: DDN IntelliFlash vs. NetApp E-Series

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