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Dell Unity XT vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800 comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
1.0
Organizations reduced costs and improved performance with Pure FlashArray X NVMe, achieving quick ROI and efficient resource management.
Sentiment score
4.2
Dell Unity XT enhances performance, saves costs, and boosts efficiency with scalable, robust features yielding strong ROI for organizations.
Sentiment score
1.0
Users praised NetApp NVMe AFF A800 for boosting speed, reducing costs, and enhancing reliability, efficiency, and scalability.
By opting for the gold subscription every three years, you get a free upgrade to the latest controller release.
If you wait more than seven years to buy another one, you get a return on your investment.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Pure FlashArray X NVMe's technical support is praised for responsiveness, despite occasional follow-up issues, earning high customer satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.0
Dell Unity XT support is generally good, though some users face delays and difficulties with higher-level support access.
Sentiment score
6.2
Customers rate NetApp NVMe AFF A800 support highly for responsiveness, professionalism, and valuable information despite occasional response delays.
We also had one outage where a controller of one of the products had failed and had to be replaced on-site.
Customers always have their issues resolved promptly.
Pure has good storage.
The support team is familiar with the product and is available on-site during support times, which improves our experience.
Dell solutions are backed by excellent service and support.
The technical support sometimes takes three to four days to get hardware to facilities.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers scalable storage with low latency, easy upgrades, though capacity customization and high costs are noted.
Sentiment score
7.8
Dell Unity XT is favored for its scalability and ease of upgrades, despite lacking high-end performance for some users.
Sentiment score
6.6
NetApp NVMe AFF A800 offers scalable expansion, manageable by enterprises, with minor limitations noted for cloud integration and upgrades.
It is highly scalable.
It is suitable for both medium-sized and enterprise businesses.
It hasn't broken down anytime in the last six to seven years, despite hurricanes, earthquakes, and power outages.
Dell Unity XT is quite scalable and can be scaled up to the petabyte level.
For NetApp, we can recommend the FAS 8000 series.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Pure Storage offers exceptional stability and reliability with outstanding support, consistently achieving high user ratings for performance and service.
Sentiment score
8.5
Dell Unity XT is praised for stability, offering reliable performance and easy maintenance, with improvements post-initial bugs.
Sentiment score
7.6
NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is praised for reliability, performance, and fast issue resolution, achieving high satisfaction and stability.
During the eight years, there have been no problems such as hardware failure or stopping.
I would rate the stability of the solution as a ten out of ten.
I would rate the stability of the product at seven out of ten.
I would rate the overall stability of Dell Unity XT an eight out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Pure FlashArray X requires cost-effective improvements in UI, integration, cloud features, multitenancy, analytics, backup, AI, and scalability.
Dell Unity XT needs improved deduplication, compression, integration features, support, affordability, and simplified management for enhanced user satisfaction.
NetApp NVMe AFF A800 requires cost reduction, setup simplification, stability improvements, enhanced UI, and better cloud integration and performance.
We would appreciate a built-in transparent failover in the next release to eliminate the need for a separate metro cluster.
I'm eagerly anticipating the roadmap's promise of introducing multiple controllers, which could significantly boost scalability and resilience.
We mostly rely on long-term releases. We don't need the most up-to-date features, but we need a reliable environment.
In the future, if Dell storages include this option, especially for Unity, it would help us target SME or medium enterprises for quicker closures and support the sales team.
I believe if Dell can integrate AI to predict potential failures, especially in hardware like hard disks, that would be very useful for proper maintenance.
The pricing is a bit higher than expected.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers see Pure FlashArray X NVMe as a justified premium investment due to performance and comprehensive licensing.
Dell Unity XT is competitively priced, offering robust features and support, suitable for mid-range budgets despite transparency concerns.
NetApp NVMe AFF A800 pricing opinions vary; some find it reasonable, others desire cost reductions, highlighting differing budget constraints.
While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits.
The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there.
I would give it a nine out of ten in terms of costliness.
It is priced at around or under $50,000.
The cost is not cheap nor expensive.
Commercially, Dell Unity XT is viable and competitively priced.
 

Valuable Features

Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers exceptional performance, reliability, scalability, and seamless VMware integration, enhancing workload efficiency and user experience.
Dell Unity XT is praised for its simplicity, performance, reliability, scalability, and cost-effectiveness, ideal for mid-range companies.
NetApp NVMe AFF A800 provides stable, high-performance storage with low latency, easy setup, and efficient management for enhanced application performance.
Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator.
The platform's robust features include excellent sustainability tracking, and a comprehensive dashboard offering insights into IOPS, bandwidth, performance, and virtual activities.
Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen.
It helps with data cost management and is seen as a mid-range product with good performance.
We installed the Flash, which makes our IO operations fast and efficient.
If their growth is not significant, we might suggest mid-level Unity storage like Unity 300.
 

Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
14th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Dell Unity XT
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp NVMe AFF A800
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
27th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell Unity XT is 6.5%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is 0.8%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Syed Habib - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient data replication and fast IOPS have improved operational performance
Dell and a partner jointly implemented this solution in Auvink. We installed the Flash, which makes our IO operations fast and efficient. Replication is available, allowing us to replicate data simultaneously from one site to another. All-flash technology and vTXT enhance speed, and the IOPS are faster. The cache's IOPS are much better. Snapshots provide a unique feature for testing and make management more comfortable and easy. The platform is multi-supported and certification is more convenient and easy to manage.
HelderValente - PeerSpot reviewer
Data performance improves with reduced latency and reliable architecture
The integration with cloud ecosystems has not effectively supported our hybrid cloud deployments as we use directly the provider, not the hybrid cloud. I don't have any add-on to suggest for improvement, but in my opinion, the NetApp NVMe AFF A800 product is pretty good. I am satisfied with what I have in NetApp NVMe AFF A800 and don't require additional features in the next release. They should promote NetApp NVMe AFF A800 more for other clients in my region.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Educational Organization
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
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...
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 ...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
I saw that you have doubts about what you chose. I have a lot of experience with the constructor, honestly I can reco...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
They’re both great solutions and I’ve used both. EMC is being VERY aggressive on pricing which may be the undoing of...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
First of all the decision should be taken looking at similar products in terms of capacity and performance. I will sh...
What do you like most about NetApp NVMe AFF A800?
The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp NVMe AFF A800?
The pricing of NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is good currently, so I don't have any issues regarding the pricing.
What needs improvement with NetApp NVMe AFF A800?
The integration with cloud ecosystems has not effectively supported our hybrid cloud deployments as we use directly t...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
EMC Unity, Dell EMC Unity
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Draper, Rio Grande Pacific, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Unity XT vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.