DDN IntelliFlash vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) comparison

DataDirect Networks and Nutanix are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. DataDirect Networks is ranked #29 with an average rating of 9.0, while Nutanix is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.7. DataDirect Networks holds a 0.6% mindshare in AFS, compared to Nutanix’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of DataDirect Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Nutanix users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

DDN IntelliFlash and Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) are well-regarded storage solutions in the tech industry. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) often receives more favorable user reviews for its advanced features and overall value compared to DDN IntelliFlash based on user feedback.

Features: DDN IntelliFlash is known for high performance, flexibility in handling diverse workloads, and efficient data management. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is praised for robust integration capabilities, scalability options, and comprehensive reliability for enterprise needs.

Room for Improvement: DDN IntelliFlash users suggest enhancements in management complexity, reporting functionalities, and user interface. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) users recommend improvements in backup capabilities, system performance issues, and documentation quality.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: DDN IntelliFlash deployment is generally smooth, but some reports of complexities requiring support exist. Customer service is rated as satisfactory with room for improvement. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is known for a straightforward deployment process and is consistently praised for efficient customer service and support teams.

Pricing and ROI: DDN IntelliFlash's pricing is competitive but with mixed opinions on ROI. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is perceived as more expensive; however, users report that its extensive feature set and performance provide a better ROI, making it worth the higher cost.

To learn more, read our detailed DDN IntelliFlash vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

September 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 November 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.1%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DDN IntelliFlash is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)	0.7%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.1%
DDN IntelliFlash	0.6%
Other	97.6%

All-Flash Storage

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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Amarnath Charugundla

System Engineer at Tata Consultancy

Unified management and cost-effectiveness lead to positive experiences and future savings

Improvement is necessary wherein the memory or storage should not breach 90%, because if breached, it becomes unmanageable. We have to set alerts or CPU triggering for 95% for the first warning. Other activities on nodes or file systems should be properly maintained. We must monitor the dashboard for P1, P2 alerts in the Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) file share system including SMB, NFS, objects, and blocks. Attention should be maintained for any alerts such as CPU, memory, and RAM alerts, as exceeding these creates issues within teams. If triggered to 95% and forgotten, it crosses the SLA breach, causing disturbances to application, web, and platform teams. Continuous monitoring on the Nutanix dashboard is essential. Even a highly experienced person in Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) cannot provide a 10 rating out of 10 because it is a vast system. I would rate it eight from my perspective.

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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

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."

"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."

"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."

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."

"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."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

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

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

"The initial setup is straightforward."

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

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

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

More DDN IntelliFlash pros

"I appreciate its storage licensing model, as it offers flexibility."

"Nutanix Volumes is a perfectly stable product."

"The best features of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) are its excellent performance; comparing it with other vendors, there's no need for expertise as with other storage solutions."

"DR and the replication power are valuable."

"My opinion is that this solution has very good stability."

"Some of the features that we use include replication and snapshot capabilities, especially from remote locations to our data centers. The main benefit our company sees from using Nutanix Unified Storage is simplification. In the past, we used three-tier solutions with a lot of complexity and operational overhead. Now, we want to focus on the layers above. I want to have storage available, but I don't want to have to think about it. I want it to work without any issues."

"What I found most valuable in Nutanix Files Storage is its high availability and ability to scale out with many VMs."

"The solution's most valuable features are its support and speed."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pros

Cons

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."

"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."

"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."

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

"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."

"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."

"We need better data deduplication."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"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."

"They need to offer better integration for a virtual platform to enable you to create hyper-converged solution."

"Snapshots are not as easy to access as on a NetApp device."

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

"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."

"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."

"In future releases, I look forward to more AI features."

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

More DDN IntelliFlash cons

"For me, personally, it's a little bit slow because there's so much stuff in the underlying layers that even after talking with Nutanix support, I couldn't really grasp it."

"The solution needs to be more open to integration with other vendors. Sometimes, we struggle with the support process. Our skilled engineers must explain our problems to everyone, even though we've already done preliminary investigations. The support team follows standard procedures, which can be painful. We're not a small customer, especially in the life sciences sector, so we'd appreciate more specialized support. I've heard Nutanix Unified Storage has teams dedicated to life sciences and healthcare; we should be part of that."

"Regarding areas where Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) could improve, they should focus on pricing transparency and reducing licensing complexity."

"While Unified Storage has evolved a lot over time, its database handling needs to improve a little. There could be an improvement in terms of costs. It's a little expensive for Brazil but still delivers a lot of performance."

"Managing other storage infrastructure on Nutanix Files Storage is an area for improvement. In particular, I want to add other forms of storage from different vendors not currently in Nutanix Files Storage, to the file server, for better management."

"I would like Nutanix to provide a solution for virtual disks. This is the main problem for which we want a solution."

"Its features can be further enhanced from the DR and high availability points of view to match other vendors, such as NetApp."

"Pricing can always be better."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."

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

"The product is expensive."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"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."

"I assume Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) has helped reduce our total cost of ownership."

"Nutanix's pricing is definitely much better when compared to other storage providers. That was one of the main reasons we switched to this platform."

"With all of the Nutanix equipment, the licensing is expensive. We operate in the enterprise space, but we're a midsized company. At times, the price tag is a little bit shocking for a company with only 35 employees. We're not a Fortune 500 company, but we deal with Fortune 500 drug and energy companies. We have to play in that enterprise space if we're going to have enterprise customers. I'm very price-conscious, but I understand that if I want the best, I've got to pay the price."

"The price of the license is expensive when comparing it to traditional storage."

"Licensing-wise, I have no complaints. Their license is pretty simple and easy. It gives us everything we need, so I have no complaints about licensing."

"Nutanix is priced a bit higher than some of its competitors. A lot of Chinese companies like Huawei are entering the Saudi Arabian market trying to provide similar solutions for a lower price. It offers a good value, especially the support. Nutanix has a highly competent team. The after-sales support is excellent."

"Nutanix offers different pricing options, including Ultimate and Ultimate Pro."

"We are Nutanix partners, so it is pretty good. With the free terabyte that comes with the Nutanix clusters, we have started to build proposals for the clients. The price adjustment with the new policy of Nutanix Unified Storages seems attractive. Let us see if it has results."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Government

Computer Software Company

27%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	27
Midsize Enterprise	30
Large Enterprise	63

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 Nutanix Unified Storage?

Nutanix has excellent product documentation available on their portals, written in simple, easy-to-understand language.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix Unified Storage?

It is very cost-effective compared to the traditional environment. With new hardware, it's a long-term investment but...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Nutanix Unified Storage?

To improve Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS), cost is always an issue for every company, especially when we talk about la...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 22% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

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VAST Data vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 44% of the time

NetApp AFF vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 17% of the time

Tintri VMstore T7000 vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 11% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 10% of the time

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 9% of the time

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Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 12% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 10% of the time

MinIO vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 6% of the time

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

October 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash

November 2025

Download DDN IntelliFlash product report

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

October 2025

Download Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) product report

Also Known As

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

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

Nutanix Files Storage, Nutanix Volumes Block Storage, Nutanix Objects Storage

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

Nutanix Unified Storage provides high availability and seamless cloud platform integration, ensuring robust redundancy, scalability, and streamlined management. It supports hybrid cloud connectivity, enhancing storage security and performance.

Nutanix Unified Storage is designed for effective data protection across block, file, and object storage, offering features like ransomware detection and a centralized management interface through Prism Central. Users gain improved SLAs and IT cost savings through its efficient performance. Despite its user-friendly interface, there is a demand for enhanced security measures such as Multi-Factor Authentication and DLP. While its resilience is notable, users seek improvements in protocol compatibility, storage capabilities, pricing, and support processes.

What are the most important features of Nutanix Unified Storage?

User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies storage management and monitoring.
High Availability: Ensures continuous operation and reliability.
Seamless Cloud Integration: Compatible with platforms like Azure and AWS.
Robust Redundancy: Protects data against hardware failures.
Scalable Architecture: Easily adapts to growing data storage needs.
Ransomware Detection: Enhances data protection measures.

What benefits and ROI might users find in reviews?

Improved SLAs: Increased service reliability and performance.
IT Cost Savings: Reduces expenses through efficient resource use.
Enhanced Security: Stronger data protection and reduced risk.
Centralized Management: Easier control and monitoring from one dashboard.

Industries implement Nutanix Unified Storage for tasks such as file storage, database performance improvement, and storage solution consolidation. Companies deploying virtual machines, securing against ransomware, connecting hybrid clouds, and backing up data find it useful. It supports workloads like Citrix VDI, Kubernetes, and research data, assisting many organizations migrating from legacy storage for better cost efficiency and reduced data center footprints.

Nutanix

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

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

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

September 2025

Free Report: DDN IntelliFlash vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Find out what your peers are saying about DDN IntelliFlash vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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See our DDN IntelliFlash vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) report.

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