We performed a comparison between Dell XtremIO and Pure Storage FlashArray 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."We are a large-scale company, and our growth has been pretty significant over the last five or six years. We like the scale, and the way NetApp grows, so that's why we use it. It's mostly for block storage."
"Using System Manager for green management or command line interface, we have a single point for managing the cluster. It is much easier to manage. It is very seamless. The product is robust and solid."
"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."
"This solution helps accelerate demanding enterprise applications. VMware workloads, the database, and Oracle Solaris are hosted on AFF, which means that our primary priority workloads are on AFF and that the secondary ones are on FAS. That includes the SAN national cloud."
"The newest version of ONTAP has a bit of a learning curve because you need to learn where things are to find them. It is not impossible, but when you are accustomed to the older version of ONTAP, it just takes a bit getting used to it, but it is about the same as before."
"The Snapshots and just the overall flexibility of the product have been great."
"I like the ability to snapshot, and the cloning features are valuable to us as well. I like that I can quickly and efficiently snapshot the data and move it to wherever I need to locally or in the cloud. Also, I know that when I take the snapshot that all of the data will be there and that it will be usable when I need to use it."
"The NVMe flash cache is the most useful feature. It lowers transactional speed even more."
"The most valuable feature of Dell EMC XtremIO is the data protection (DP) group, it is one of the most advanced features in these types of arrays. The dedupe and compression that this array provides both do a superb job."
"A valuable feature of XtremIO is that, in terms of administration, it's simple and manageable."
"Dell XtremIO is good for databases and huge workloads."
"The Metro clustering and solid-state performance, are the most valuable features of this solution."
"XtremIO is very stable."
"Xtrem10's features are more simple to implement. The integration and interface are also good."
"The code upgrades are very smooth."
"The management is simple in Pure Storage FlashArray."
"The all-flash disc is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"The solution offers amazing performance."
"This solution is very scalable."
"The most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray are management and administration user-friendliness, provisioning, and performance."
"Processes that used to take 40 minutes to two hours can be completed in five minutes."
"Technical support is good."
"There is room for improvement with the user interface. There are a few things that cannot be done in the GUI. We do a lot of things through the CLI, but that's grown out of a lack of ability to do them in the GUI. An example is QTrees. You can manage them within the GUI, but the GUI is missing a few options."
"After the three-year prepay, the extended warranty is a little expensive."
"We would like to have a feature that automatically moves volumes between aggregates, based on the performance. We normally need to do this manually."
"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."
"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."
"The size of NetApp could be better. They're always about 40 pounds without the hard drives in them, so it would be great if there's a way to make them smaller yet keep the functionality. That would reduce the physical footprint."
"I don't like the newest GUI. It needs more options. Some features have been removed. Oversight is not as good in the new GUI compared to the previous version. Though, it might be something that we just need to get used to."
"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."
"XtremIO is coming to its end of life."
"In the next release, the solution could have better integration and if we can host assets on the cloud, such as NetApp has the NetApp volumes, which we can host on the cloud directly called NetApp CVO (cloud volume ONTAP). Dell EMC should come up with something purely on the cloud rather than manage services."
"I would like to see the ease of deployment and built-in Metro clustering."
"If you are looking at flash storage solutions, XtremIO doesn't offer any unique features. Most of my customers are migrating their workload from XtremIO to other formats because of this."
"Dell's technical support could be better."
"XtremIO needs to be lower priced. It also needs better endpoints and scalability."
"The file functionality could be better."
"Beyond a certain amount of petabytes, you have to have a separate system. Basically, it's not infinitely scalable."
"Automation could be simplified."
"Data reduction is an area that needs improvement. There is a garbage collection service that runs but during that time, system utilization increases."
"The price could be better."
"The price of the solution can improve."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve by being more secure."
"Pricing could be better in comparison to other solutions."
Dell XtremIO is ranked 21st in All-Flash Storage with 6 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 42 reviews. Dell XtremIO is rated 7.0, while Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of Dell XtremIO writes "Useful data protection group, effective compression, and stable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Provides protection against ransomware threats with immutable snapshots, and it is well known for its scalability, ease of use, and non-disruptive upgrades". Dell XtremIO is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell Unity XT, INFINIDAT InfiniBox and VMware vSAN, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, VMware vSAN, IBM FlashSystem, HPE Nimble Storage and Huawei OceanStor. See our Dell XtremIO vs. Pure Storage FlashArray report.
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