DDN IntelliFlash vs VAST Data comparison

DataDirect Networks and VAST Data are both solutions in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category. DataDirect Networks is ranked #12 with an average rating of 9.0, while VAST Data is ranked #11. DataDirect Networks holds a 1.0% mindshare in N, compared to VAST Data’s 5.9% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of DataDirect Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of VAST Data users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

DDN IntelliFlash and VAST Data offer competitive solutions in the storage market. VAST Data seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced features and higher perceived value.

Features: DDN IntelliFlash is valued for its versatile functionality, performance, and integration capabilities. VAST Data is noted for groundbreaking architecture, scalability, and efficiency.

Room for Improvement: DDN IntelliFlash users suggest enhancing GUI elements and adding more automation capabilities. For VAST Data, improved documentation and easier system management are suggested.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: DDN IntelliFlash is easier to deploy and has reliable customer support. VAST Data offers robust deployment options that are more complex but has highly responsive and knowledgeable customer service.

Pricing and ROI: DDN IntelliFlash users are happy with the cost structure and return on investment. VAST Data, though more expensive, delivers significant ROI due to performance efficiency and data reduction capabilities, making the higher price justified.

To learn more, read our detailed DDN IntelliFlash vs. VAST Data Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. VAST Data

May 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 June 2025, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 2.8%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DDN IntelliFlash is 1.0%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VAST Data is 5.9%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

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.

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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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Alan Powers

HPC CTO at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Stability-wise, a device that has been up and running for years

The failover capability and resiliency are some of the solution's valuable features. The big thing is resilience because it has richer coding in it, so multiple devices can't fail. Also, one can still access a number of CBoxes that can allow one to access their file system. Once a device fails, it fails the transparency of the end-user, and it just starts using another resource. The encryption capability, the snapshots, along with a whole bunch of features make the tool valuable. VAST Data keeps adding more and more features all the time.

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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."

"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"The solution is very straightforward to set up."

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

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"The latency is good."

"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"Data Compression: Up to 80% space reduction in the database"

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

More DDN IntelliFlash pros

"The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations."

"This has been one of the most reliable storage systems that I have ever used."

Cons

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."

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

"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."

"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."

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

More DDN IntelliFlash cons

"The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement."

"The write performance could be improved because it is less than half of the read performance."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"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."

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

"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."

"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."

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."

"We acquired VAST Data as a one-time, capital purchase."

"Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Real Estate/Law Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

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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 ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IntelliFlash?

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

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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...

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Can you provide any information you may have on VAST Data?

Here are some technical details about VAST Data: VAST Data is a software-defined storage platform designed to scale...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 29% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 19% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 23% of the time

NetApp AFF vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 17% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 15% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 14% of the time

More DDN IntelliFlash Competitors

NetApp AFF vs VAST Data

Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs VAST Data

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs VAST Data

Compared 9% of the time

Qumulo vs VAST Data

Compared 9% of the time

Databricks vs VAST Data

Compared 8% of the time

More VAST Data Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

May 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash

June 2025

Download DDN IntelliFlash product report

Buyer's Guide

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

May 2025

Download VAST Data 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

Innovation to break decades of data storage trade-offs.

VAST Data

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

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

Norwest Venture Partners, General Dynamics Information Technology, Ginkgo Bioworks

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. VAST Data

May 2025

Free Report: DDN IntelliFlash vs. VAST Data

Find out what your peers are saying about DDN IntelliFlash vs. VAST Data and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.

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