We performed a comparison between Dell PowerStore and NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The most valuable features of Dell PowerStore are the support for NVMe and SCM, which provides end-to-end performance and high IOPS, minimizing latency. It is a full-fledged storage solution."
"When compared to Pure Storage, Dell PowerStore's cost was quite attractive."
"I like the performance of the PowerStore. When you talk about PowerStore, it's mainly about flash systems and high-end IOPS. The 1000T is a midsize box, in terms of the way the vendor positions it, but it is more than enough for our needs."
"I have found the most valuable part of Dell PowerStore is the price."
"The simplicity and ease of use have been very valuable features. I have a very small team, and only half of the team is well versed in the HP product. Whereas if I bring PowerStore in, everyone can learn it because it will be new on the floor."
"The administration tools take advantage of machine learning and make recommendations to the admins, and that makes the administration easier."
"PowerStore is easy to use. All the drives use soft encryption. To upgrade it, you download the app, and it runs by itself. It's very easy to deploy, share, and create volumes."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"Technical support has been okay."
"The speed is great. That's probably number one in terms of features we appreciate."
"The most valuable features are the performance and the storage efficiency, due to the compression and deduplication... The efficiency is very important because we can buy fewer disks for more data."
"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."
"One of the main features that we love about the system is the ability to create snapshots. NetApp makes a lot of snapshots in a short space of time. Also, the speed of data recovery with NetApp, at the time we need it, is an important feature that we love."
"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."
"It impacts customer retention because of its overall ease. When you are running a business, where time is a factor, that is the biggest selling point. Things happen really rapidly, when they happen, and being able to say, "Yeah, we can get this up and running in a day, if you want," or even less time in some cases. Sometimes, that can be what makes or breaks our case."
"The benefits of being on AFF are the phenomenal speed at which we're able to ingest data and index it, and the IOPS."
"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."
"Could use some additional automation."
"The UI should be a little more user-friendly to manage."
"It's also only supported with a limited amount of switches."
"The price is on the higher side."
"Could be improved by including a synchronizing feature for the file systems."
"More demonstration and training options are needed."
"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."
"We would like to have a feature that automatically moves volumes between aggregates, based on the performance. We normally need to do this manually."
"We have been seeing some challenges around the application layer implementation. We are having some teething problems now with the cooperation between the application layer and backups to things, like SnapCenter. This may be a question of product maturity."
"In the past, NetApp designed it so that you have a 70% threshold. You would never fill up past 70% since you need to have that room available. Whereas with Pure, I can fill it up to 110% of what they listed and it's still going at full speed. NetApp can't do that."
"When it comes to the connectivity on the back end, where the hardware is concerned—the cabling and the like—it could also be simplified to ease the communication between the nodes and between the other components of the infrastructure. I still find that a little bit complicated."
"After the three-year prepay, the extended warranty is a little expensive."
"It used to give us the volume where LANs should be placed when we created a LAN in the older version. However, in the newer version of ONTAP, it does not give where to place the LAN in the volume. So, that liberty has been taken away. If that was there again, it would be very good."
"It can get a little expensive if you need to add more disks. The cost is a pain point for us, especially in terms of expansion."
"NetApp should offer more training so everyone can learn about the products. Other vendors have a lot of training options. It would be great if NetApp would highlight how to use the features more so that every admin or person can gain more knowledge about this technology."
Dell PowerStore is ranked 1st in All-Flash Storage with 25 reviews while NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 26 reviews. Dell PowerStore is rated 8.6, while NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Dell PowerStore writes "Saves us power and floor space, and we can quickly assign new data stores for our developers' VMs". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) writes "Provides us with quick options when restoring things for customers". Dell PowerStore is most compared with Dell Unity XT, Pure Storage FlashArray, IBM FlashSystem, Dell PowerMax NVMe and HPE Primera, whereas NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) is most compared with Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Dell Unity XT, Pure Storage FlashArray, HPE Nimble Storage and IBM FlashSystem. See our Dell PowerStore vs. NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) report.
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