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Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs NetApp AFF A-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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Huawei OceanStor Dorado
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp AFF A-Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
20th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise SAN (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 6.9%, up from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Huawei OceanStor Dorado is 3.2%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF A-Series is 0.9%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray6.9%
Huawei OceanStor Dorado3.2%
NetApp AFF A-Series0.9%
Other89.0%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
JG
Chief Technical Officer at Integra Systems
Inexpensive with fast performance enhances data storage efficiency
We are using Huawei OceanStor Dorado for Hyper Metro and under Datacore products and some Sunpro products Huawei OceanStor Dorado is fast and has significantly improved data storage efficiency. The fast performance and reasonable pricing of Huawei OceanStor Dorado are the main reasons we sell…
Raymond Ciscon - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Engineer at MacLean-Fogg Company
Gives us the foundation to grow efficiently
We're a manufacturer. All of our ERP software is dependent upon fast performance and connection to this hardware. So when there was an issue years ago when something was wrong or slow, that prompted us to say, "Can we check storage? Can we check the network?" Ever since we've gone up to all-flash FAS systems, there's never any questions about performance when it comes to storage. There's been a huge leap from spinning disks to SSDs. I'm hoping with the next update, we'll go to NVMe and we'll have similar experiences. Last year, we refreshed the SAN at our headquarters. We signed a Keystone agreement with the ability to pay for storage as a service at an excellent price point yet still have the hardware on-prem. I manage the hardware, and, for me, it's the best of both worlds. We've just come up with a situation where, finally, after some time, we're going to need to buy some additional storage. In previous situations like this, it usually meant the purchase of an additional shelf at a large price. Now we have Keystone, and we're locked in at that price per tebibyte. We just have to say that we want to add 25 tebibytes and they take care of it. It's worked out really well. We work ISO 27001 certified. Since I manage the enterprise storage, we use SnapMirror, and we're currently using Veeam for backups. Thanks to what this tool provides, we are able to get through that portion of our certification without a problem. No changes, no rectifying. It's very slick. Our company's goals include maintaining a level of consistency. We're never going to be on the bleeding edge. We're never going to have the super fastest abilities. We want something that works, is easier for us to manage, and has a better growth path. For us, in the past, in the need for additional disk space, if we didn't do the sizing right in the first place, buying additional disks was incredibly expensive. Now, with Keystone, that's no longer an issue, and that's what we like.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We currently have four Pure Storage FlashArray boxes, and all the storage boxes are on an Evergreen subscription model where we receive the latest hardware and features without any cost in a completely non-intrusive task."
"It allows engineers to focus on other things rather than doing the more manual tasks. It automates tasks, so the ease of use is extreme. It simplifies the storage."
"I am exceptionally happy with the product and the way it works."
"Once it's set up, it just runs on its own and only requires the occasional checkup."
"Manageability is its most valuable feature; it is simplified storage, as we don't have to maintain or administer it on a daily basis, which is good, and we can depend on the solution's ability to phone home and leverage the built-in support function of the product."
"It is simple, powerful, and a beautiful solution."
"My rating of Pure Storage is a ten out of ten because of the price for performance and footprint - the overall value."
"All updates, upgrades, and hardware work are all performed on-line with no impact."
"The solution is scalable."
"The performance is good."
"The primary factors that make Huawei OceanStor Dorado Series highly valuable to us are its competitive pricing, exceptional performance, and stability."
"The most valuable features are the five chips architecture and the purpose-built NVMe hard disk drive. Additionally, the IOPS feature is good."
"Huawei OceanStor Dorado is equipped with powerful controllers"
"The fast performance and reasonable pricing of Huawei OceanStor Dorado are the main reasons we sell them."
"Most of the features which all enterprises storages solutions have are available in Huawei OceanStor Dorado."
"The installation and management are very easy."
"We've reduced downtime. Without all of NetApp's benefits, we would have had to reconfigure parts of storage that would have required downtime. We have dramatically reduced our downtime through successive generations of NetApp, allowing us to get Five 9s availability."
"MetroCluster is the best product on the market. It synchronizes the storage. NetApp's update packages are a huge advantage because the firmware and server updates are in one package."
"NetApp's hot and cold storage are its most valuable features. We currently use the A series. Immutable snapshots are another advanced security feature that is positive."
"The amazing thing is that whenever we have come up with an issue where we need to get something done, and it wasn't necessarily available, they could do things for us, usually within the next revision of the software."
"The deduplication and compression options from NetApp AFF A-Series are good to use for efficient storage capacity."
"NetApp helps us get the fastest output."
"NetApp support is fantastic."
"NetApp AFF A-Series is faster and more robust compared to the all-flash storage of NetApp."
 

Cons

"The solution is not cheap. It's much more expensive than DataCore."
"I would like to see the NAS add-on component become more fault-tolerant than just a single virtual machine running inside the array. I'm unwilling to use it for that reason."
"We would like to integrate it more with our backup solutions."
"The integration capabilities could be improved."
"It goes at about 95 percent, so we have had some performance issues. It is hard to clear them."
"The price could be better."
"FlashArray could improve on the administrative side. For example, when you need to upgrade the boxes, we can't do that ourselves. We need to open a ticket with support and have them do that for us. You don't need to be on the call with them. We tell them we have a slot that we want to upgrade, and they send us an email when it's done."
"During heavy load situations with 100K IOPS on one specific port, it requires more granularity level for distribution."
"It's not easy to receive an upgrade license of Huawei OceanStor Dorado. It's easy to buy OceanStor with several features, but when you want to add on features later it's not easy."
"Huawei should provide new security features, such as blocking ransomware sites and improving detection. Currently, we receive updates from HQ in China; there are instances where hackers may infiltrate network sites and encrypt our data."
"The technology and the features need improvement."
"Huawei OceanStor Dorado could improve the integration, there have been some compatibility issues with some operating system functions."
"I would really like to see Heterogeneous Storage Virtualization in a future release."
"If they implement a backup solution directly into the OceanStor then it will be a valuable feature."
"The price must be improved."
"Having distinct modules for data compression and encryption features enhances flexibility and performance optimization for users with varying requirements."
"The solution's ransomware protection could be improved."
"Regarding tech support for NetApp, once the engineer understands our problem, they provide solutions that suit our environment; however, it is essential for the engineer to understand that our environment may differ from standard setups, which can sometimes cause discrepancies in recommendations."
"NetApp AFF A-Series should work on cost. The solutions, especially enterprise-level storage, should be more affordable to improve their appeal to businesses."
"We have several problems with the limitations of NetApp systems in terms of volume shares. We have a brick in a 700 or a controller, and we sometimes make small volumes, but Kubernetes container volumes don't allow us."
"It would be helpful if our partner organized a yearly session with my team to discuss the new feature sets on our current solutions and other ways NetApp can help us. Perhaps we are missing some information to help us make the right decision."
"NetApp is shifting to the cloud and adopting AI, but it is not improving its core technology to deliver faster storage. We're still waiting to see if it improves speed with solutions like the 90 series."
"I really don't have a lot of complaints. In the past, there were issues, however, they've really done a great job of reaching out."
"Pricing could always be lower."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray a five out of ten. It is expensive but not too much."
"The Evergreen Storage subscription is a really cool concept. As long as we maintain our subscription, we will get new controllers every three years and really never have a forklift upgrade like we currently are doing. Just that future-proofing is an ease off of my mind to know that I won't have to do what I'm dong right now again."
"Price per terabyte is substantially higher than their competition. We would like to see it drop."
"They have a standardized fee; it's been the same price for 10 years straight. I am happy with the price — I think it's good."
"I don't know the exact cost but it's around $1,000."
"It is cost-effective because after buying a subscription, they provide a service to upgrade hardware for free. They are providing so many features. When you consider the features provided, it is cost-effective."
"Pure Storage has not helped us to reduce our licensing costs."
"I have had a couple of customers who have complained about the cost. It can be a little more expensive than some of the other platforms. After it has been installed, I have never had a customer say, "I wish we wouldn't have spent all that extra money." They have always been happy with the product after it has been installed. They might be on the fence about it because of the price, but everybody who I have ever seen install it, they are always happy with it."
"You need to pay for the license."
"It stands out as the fastest purpose-built storage solution available on the market, and the pricing is highly competitive and excellent."
"The price of Huawei OceanStor Dorado is very inexpensive, it cost approximately $5 per gigabyte."
"It's not easy to receive an upgrade license of Huawei OceanStor Dorado. It's easy to buy OceanStor with several features, but when you want to add on features later it's not easy. I had some problems."
"I rate the pricing a six on a scale from one to ten, where one is expensive, not cost-effective, and ten is cheap."
"We saw ROI in terms of both money and time saved. It is worth the price."
"The pricing is very competitive."
"The pricing is one thing that works for them. I think their pricing is more competitively affordable than these top competitors."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliabil...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Huawei OceanStor Dorado?
The products they offer are quite cheap. However, I do not have much information about licensing since we don't buy t...
What needs improvement with Huawei OceanStor Dorado?
Some customers have reported not understanding how the immutable part can be unlocked. From my perspective, it's not ...
What is your primary use case for Huawei OceanStor Dorado?
We are using Huawei OceanStor Dorado for Hyper Metro and under Datacore products and some Sunpro products.
What needs improvement with NetApp AFF A-Series?
NetApp is doing great with cloud integration; however, there may be room for improvement in integrating with existing...
What advice do you have for others considering NetApp AFF A-Series?
It would be great to see some automation from NetApp. I rate NetApp AFF A-Series a nine out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp AFF A-Series?
With respect to pricing, NetApp can be competitive but hasn't been explored to a large extent.
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
OceanStor Dorado V3 All-Flash Storage System
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Telecom Italia, Hi3G Sweden, KPN
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs. NetApp AFF A-Series and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.