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Dell VMAX All Flash vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (14th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Dell VMAX All Flash
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (25th)
NetApp FAS Series
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd), NAS (3rd), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
BrijeshKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
With an easy initial setup phase, the tool is useful for multi-site replication and DR
The configuration part of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. If the product is up and running after, if it goes down, my company has observed that there are multiple failures that occur in the tool, so it needs to be reinstalled from scratch. The tool should have an automated feature or an automated option to handle the aforementioned scenario, which one can simply go and reset, after which the tool should be reinstalled with the same configuration.
Arnaud Salmon - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good performance and
Once, I've been in a program, but they stopped supporting protocols like HTTP, STP, and that kind of stuff. All of the DIP supports at the beginning were kind of support when it was just Python and just five storage. And it happened a few times that the customer required the STP and HTTP protocol for storage. And I was surprised I couldn't do it anymore with NetApp. So, it would be beneficial for them to support both kinds of protocols. The only little black points that I would put on top of NetApp FAS Series. There is room for improvement in deployment and configuration processes. The thing with ONTAP is that we have a lot of layers, from the raw disks to the volumes we present to servers and configure. There are quite a lot of things to configure. Probably NetApp should ease the way to install that. In NetApp products, such as ONTAP and FAS, a solid understanding of storage is still necessary to handle configurations in larger systems. It's not the same with Pure Storage or Huawei. Even someone less familiar with storage could manage it, making it more accessible.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"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."
"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."
"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."
"I appreciate the performance."
"It works very well."
"The snapshot feature has been precious for our testing processes, application development, and managing testing environments due to its efficiency and ease of use."
"The product's initial setup phase was good."
"The ransomware protection feature is housed in a separate unit, specifically addressing the top twenty most critical threats."
"The most valuable features of VMAX are its performance and GUI interface."
"We haven't experienced any outages or core-level issues in the last ten years, making us comfortable with the storage solution."
"We can manage our applications from a single dashboard."
"The strong point is that our clients like this are RadLV (Radiology Low-Value). They also use SnapMirror and MetroCluster."
"The solution has tiers inside which means we do not only need to use SSDs."
"Adaptive balancing is a valuable feature."
"Has rock solid reliability and is easy to use."
"The storage efficiency provided a maximum savings in our storage utilization."
"The most valuable feature for us is the combining of HA and SnapMirror."
"I like the unified management feature because sometimes you end up running a single protocol on the entire system."
 

Cons

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability. We've had to procure additional engines to address this limitation."
"There is room for improvement in the centralized administration."
"We encountered some challenges during large data migrations that could be addressed for smoother transitions."
"The configuration part of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"Improvements are needed in both partition recovery and scalability."
"The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability."
"The WAFL is slow."
"The adoption of the cloud in Argentina is very slow. Customers do not move most of their applications to the cloud. Moving applications is a simple task, but the cost is a concern in Argentina. There is an opportunity there for NetApp with Cloud Volumes ONTAP."
"We have some experience with older equipment end-of-life. For example, when warranty support stops or updates stop – it can be frustrating. Not all clients can buy a new filer every year or two, and NetApp ending support a bit quickly can be a concern."
"The one aspect of the solution that's negative for us is also more unique to us due to the fact that we did a MetroCluster. The tiebreaker piece that does the monitoring of the two different locations, and determines if one is not talking to the network normally (or if it's truly down) is a little difficult. It feels like it was not designed from the beginning to fit well into the other pieces. It feels like it was thrown in at the last minute and it is not smooth."
"NetApp FAS Series should introduce an FTP application for the broadcast and post-production market."
"It could be more flexible in terms of configuration."
"The solution’s pricing is expensive."
"NetApp could improve costs while making the solution more straightforward to use and deploy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."
"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."
"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."
"The price falls within the mid-range, neither inexpensive nor high-priced."
"It is not a cheap product."
"The price it not low, but comparing features to other vendors, the price can be balanced."
"The solution’s cost is reasonable."
"The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is reasonable for its performance."
"It is a moderately low-priced platform."
"Low-priced product, but pricing could still be made more attractive."
"The only area that could be improved is to lower prices for their All Flash FAS."
"The price, compared to competitors, is quite high."
"When we need to implement a less expensive solution we use Huawei. NetApp FAS Series is a little bit expensive compared to the average of the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Educational Organization
26%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

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.
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 ...
What do you like most about Dell EMC VMax?
The product's initial setup phase was good.
What needs improvement with Dell EMC VMax?
The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability. We've had to procure additiona...
Which SAN product would you choose: IBM FlashSystem (FS9500) vs PureFlash Array/X NVMe vs PureFlash Array/XL NVMe?
Have you considered a NetApp FAS Storage for your NAS needs? I am sure it fits very well.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp FAS Series?
The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is not cheap, but in comparison to other vendors, NetApp FAS Series is affordable be...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Information Not Available
Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell VMAX All Flash vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.