We compared NetApp AFF and Dell PowerStore based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
NetApp AFF impresses users with exceptional performance, customer service, competitive pricing, and positive ROI, but needs improvements in integration and scalability. Dell PowerStore stands out for storage performance, customer service, pricing, and positive ROI, while users suggest enhancements in ease of use and performance optimization.
Features: NetApp AFF is highly regarded for its exceptional performance, scalability, efficient data management, high availability, and seamless integration. Dell PowerStore, on the other hand, is praised for its ease of use, intuitive interface, robust security features, comprehensive support services, and workload performance optimization.
Pricing and ROI: The setup cost of NetApp AFF is described as straightforward and not difficult for users, while Dell PowerStore is reported to have a relatively low setup cost, making it convenient for users. Users have had positive experiences with the licensing process of both products, finding it smooth and user-friendly., The ROI from NetApp AFF was impressive, with increased productivity, efficiency, and improved data storage capabilities. Users praised its reliability and performance. On the other hand, Dell PowerStore offered flexibility, scalability, and advanced features, delivering tangible benefits and meeting expectations.
Room for Improvement: NetApp AFF would benefit from improvements in performance optimization, software functionality, and scalability for larger deployments. Users also mention the need for a more intuitive and user-friendly interface. Dell PowerStore could benefit from enhancements in ease of use, interface simplicity, and performance optimization. Users desire a more intuitive and efficient interface when navigating the system, with optimized speed and responsiveness for handling large amounts of data. Overall, improvements should focus on enhancing user experience and maximizing system performance.
Deployment and customer support: The user reviews indicate that the duration required for establishing a new tech solution can vary greatly for both NetApp AFF and Dell PowerStore. However, there is a difference in terms of the context in which users use the terms "deployment" and "setup." Some users of NetApp AFF spend three months on deployment and an additional week on setup, while others required only a week for both phases. On the other hand, some Dell PowerStore users reported spending three months on deployment, while others needed a week for setup. It is important to consider the overall timeframes mentioned when evaluating the user reviews for both products., Users have reported highly positive experiences with the customer service and support of both NetApp AFF and Dell PowerStore. NetApp AFF is praised for its knowledgeable and attentive support team, while Dell PowerStore is commended for its prompt and efficient assistance. Both companies demonstrate professionalism and address queries effectively.
The summary above is based on 82 interviews we conducted recently with NetApp AFF and Dell PowerStore users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"It reduces space and the polar consumption. It also accelerates the application."
"It is an easy to use product for all of my team members."
"I like its speed. It has all the features that I need."
"The most valuable features are the replication of data and the continuous snapshot that we can take from the disc."
"We have tons of capacity on it."
"The reliability is very good."
"The ease of use. That's what our customers love. They say it's very easy, they don't need special training, they don't need to call us or any other company or integrator to help them do their job. That's the main reason they purchase Pure."
"Very efficient storage"
"Has a great mapping feature."
"It has its own file formatting protocol, which saves a lot of space."
"For access from virtual machines, iSCSI, and NFS, it is very good. It helps increase performance."
"The product's initial setup phase was very easy."
"The most valuable feature is that it is easy to use this frame. I am a SAN administrator, but I was able to train my colleague, who had only been a VMware administrator, on the PowerStore in about half a day. Now he's autonomous in assigning volumes and creating data stores..."
"The solution is easy to use and has good performance."
"This solution is highly flexible and offers efficient online compression capabilities."
"The compression is excellent."
"We are spending less time putting out fires, so there's a tangible benefit right there."
"I actually did major projects where we used NetApp storage for some government agencies, and we were able to keep the storage where the government or the customer is able to own the storage while using AWS as their computing. That part was helpful to the customer."
"The ease of use for setting up our basic shares such as NFS and CIFS is valuable. It takes a couple of clicks to set up things like object shares."
"Storage is very reliable. You don't have to do much maintenance."
"The speed of data retrieval is the most valuable feature. We mostly use it for our SAP database and we are getting good IO from the hard drive."
"Batch times went from approximately seven hours down to about two and a half. Functionality during the day, such as taking or removing snapshots and cloning instances, is higher than it has ever been."
"We are using the AQoS operating system, which allows us to get a lot more out of our AFF systems."
"The features that I found most valuable are SnapMirror and SnapVault; these provide DR and backup for data redundancy."
"Historical analytics would be useful. At the moment, they don't have any type of application built for historical analytics."
"We've had it in place for about a year and a half and have had zero complaints, other than that box-to-box replication is not encrypted."
"I would like a feature to integrate with external or cloud solutions. For example, if I want to use this storage for a backup from the cloud, I want to have integration with the cloud vendors, such as Microsoft, Oracles, or Amazon. It could be available as an API to allow seamless integration. Additionally, the solution could improve by having native integration with a cloud provider, such as VMware or Microsoft, this would reduce the need to use third-party solutions to complete the task."
"It was not proactive communication."
"A year ago they promised that they would be able to read through the database encryption with more metric and they have not delivered on that patch, which is significant because it gives us back so much more storage room. We want to be able to read through the encryption."
"Going forward, don't complicate things for the customers."
"They should work on their upgrades, they're not smooth."
"Having something native in the Pure Storage ecosystem would make it integrated and in one single company, and we wouldn't have to work with multiple organizations."
"It's also only supported with a limited amount of switches."
"Where the system needs to improve is by adding more enterprise features like replication on other sites. We would also like it to be much more aligned with the VMware version. For example, today we have two different versions of VMware ESXi running to keep the PowerStore online. It would be better if the software cycling was faster."
"It was very new when we first deployed it a year ago. Even the upgrade processes and knowing what to expect, as well as documentation, could be more robust."
"I do not like having to use VPLEX for synchronous replication, as opposed to having the store software built-in."
"Many customers are looking for a cyber recovery feature included in PowerStore. We would like to see this added in a future release."
"We are happy with the service in general. The only thing would be the price of the platform."
"It doesn't support SSD or Flash."
"When you create a case on Dell's support website, you don't always get someone who is experienced in the kind of systems you need help with...making it an area where Dell's support team needs to make improvements."
"A while ago, they performed quite slowly."
"The upgrade process could be a lot quicker, but it's still good as it is. The failovers and things like that are harder than expected."
"NetApp could focus even more on the configuration."
"We have had issues with CIFS presentations and outages, so if that was removed, we could do seamless upgrades without affecting CIFS presentations. That would be an advantage. That's about the only improvement I can think of."
"There is room for improvement in terms of support. I have noticed that if I sometimes call their customer care for a particular issue, they will give me another number and ask me to call that other team. It would be better if they could do a warm transfer. That would save customers time from calling all the numbers again and speaking to another team."
"I want an interface through ONTAP that look more like what it does for the E-Series with Santricity."
"The price of NVMe storage is very expensive."
"Some of the graphical user interface changes in the later versions of NetApp have not been as good as the older ones, like in the 9.5 era."
Dell PowerStore is ranked 1st in All-Flash Storage with 46 reviews while NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 280 reviews. Dell PowerStore is rated 8.6, while NetApp AFF is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of Dell PowerStore writes "It has a very strong NAS that can support a lot of big, heavy environments". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp AFF writes "Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency". Dell PowerStore is most compared with Dell Unity XT, IBM FlashSystem, Dell PowerMax NVMe, HPE Nimble Storage and Huawei OceanStor Dorado, whereas NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell Unity XT, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, VMware vSAN, NetApp FAS Series and VAST Data. See our Dell PowerStore vs. NetApp AFF report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors and best NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays vendors.
We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.