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IBM Cloud Object Storage vs NetApp StorageGRID comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

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
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
218
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
IBM Cloud Object Storage
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (12th)
NetApp StorageGRID
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (9th)
 

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.
reviewer2384904 - PeerSpot reviewer
Account Technology Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Enables seamless data replication and supports comprehensive data analytics workflows
The capability to replicate data in different locations is valuable since it enables customers to have a cluster over various sites. Also, important is the capability to provide RESTful APIs for custom connectors. In terms of security, I advise customers to rotate access keys to enhance protection. Additionally, scalability is effortless as you can add nodes or expand the license.
Michael Lopez - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Systems Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Has reduced storage costs and improved snapshot management for large data workloads
The advanced features of NetApp StorageGRID which our upper management wouldn't agree to use, include the S3 feature. We are heavy into AWS, and my thoughts were to develop a small dev environment or even a POC environment on-prem. That's still up in the air as we continue on. Currently, AI has taken over everything with a focus on AI. The upgrades of NetApp StorageGRID present a challenge. It's a rolling upgrade, node by node. At one point, one node would not upgrade. The positive aspect is that it didn't take down the entire environment. The environment remained functional on two different versions. The scalability of NetApp StorageGRID has been proven as we've expanded twice. We started with six or seven nodes and have grown to 15 nodes. It does take time for synchronization to complete. From what I've seen, it took a couple of months for it all to sync up once adding nodes. However, it was transparent. It captured the addition and performed effectively, all happening in the background, steadily and surely.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The speed is one of the most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray."
"The most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray are simplicity, ease of use, and dashboard management."
"It is an easy to use product for all of my team members."
"The best feature is consistently lower latency, even when IOPS crank up to over 75K. The product maintains submillisecond response time, which is incredible."
"We have tons of capacity on it."
"Before we used Pure Storage it took 93 days of employees who run the database to back up and restore databases, and the scale of deployment basically went from several days to a few minutes."
"The stability is perfect, the reliability is 100%, and the latency is always lower than 1 millisecond."
"If you're interested in using this solution, I recommend that you do the same — see if you like it."
"IBM has the most number of additional services, this is the main advantage."
"The integration itself is pretty easy. The access appliances create the connection between both environments."
"Overall, I rate IBM Cloud Object Storage a ten out of ten."
"The standout feature of IBM Cloud Object Storage is its top-notch security, making it ideal for sensitive applications like mobile financial transactions."
"IBM Cloud Object Storage integrates well."
"IBM Cloud Object Storage integrates well."
"The most valuable feature I like is when you connect it via CLI plug-in...It is a stable solution."
"One of Cloud Object Storage's best features is infinite capacity. This is one of the main advantages if you don't want to use your own storage. You also have the ability to write only, write once, and read many. It's like tape storage but software-based. This feature is essential for financial institutions that require that kind of protection if you write backup or data there."
"The most valuable feature is tiering."
"NetApp StorageGRID is a great alternative to AWS S3 buckets. Erasure coding is very valuable."
"I would highly recommend this solution for video storage because of all the benefits it has given us."
"Right now, we have an older StorageGRID. I like that we can grow it."
"We definitely saw the benefits of NetApp StorageGRID immediately as our growth of snapshots and our internal customers, including Kelly Blue Book, AutoTrader, and HomeNet, required long-term snapshots, and we saw the results of having NetApp StorageGRID saving us on SSD space."
"The feature of StorageGRID that I find most valuable for ensuring data durability and protection is its Information Lifecycle Management functionality."
"The features or capabilities of NetApp StorageGRID that I have found the most valuable include scalability, interoperability, and integration options."
"The scalability is very effective for our customers."
 

Cons

"Pure Storage's logs could provide more visibility to the end-user. The logging algorithms are different from those of other vendors. For example, Cisco's logs provide extensive troubleshooting data, whereas Pure Storage logs offer limited information. We have to contact support to get more information."
"The solution is not cheap. It's much more expensive than DataCore."
"I would like to see more cloud integration."
"In terms of improvement, Everpure FlashArray could have more attractive UI/UX design compared to other solutions."
"I had to contact customer support when a drive failed as I was doing a couple of OS upgrades."
"I would rate this solution an eight because we have had outages. The commit times went very high in the database. The whole array went down so our customers were down for around eight hours. This was a very big outage which could have been our fault because we didn't do the upgrade in time."
"CIFS and SMB Shares cannot be mounted directly."
"Pure Storage will have issues with positioning in the near future since its a relatively new company. For now, customers need a PoC to trust using the solution, as it can't stand on its brand name alone. They need to improve Pure Storage's marketing."
"Room for improvement depends on customer needs. Some customers prefer pure Object Storage using the S3 protocol, while others use a gateway in front of the storage grid to enable CIFS or NFS."
"Sometimes technical support lacks a comprehensive understanding of the entire solution, only focusing on the product they support."
"The performance could improve in IBM Cloud Object Storage. The throughput or objects per second can have degradation."
"IBM Cloud storage is not cheap, but it could be."
"One improvement could be incorporating a feature similar to Dropbox's version history. This would allow users to track modifications made to files over time, which is particularly important for maintaining a record of changes. While the free version might not include this feature, it could be included in the paid version to provide added value to clients. Additionally, having a version history feature that allows users to access modifications made to files over the past three months could be beneficial."
"One area where IBM Cloud Object Storage could potentially improve is in modernizing its underlying codebase."
"The performance could be better. You can never achieve the same performance as hardware, and cloud performance is one of the main issues clients have."
"IBM has limited cloud storage."
"One key improvement I'd like to see in StorageGRID is enhanced visibility for management purposes."
"They can enhance the deduplication and compression features, which are crucial for saving more disk space."
"The only real issue that we have run into is, when we are cloning, we cannot do a thin provision clone, it has to be a full clone."
"Improvements need to be made in the support area."
"The price is something that NetApp could improve, as with most companies. NetApp is known for not being the cheapest storage option, which is also valid for StorageGRID. There are other storage options on the market which we are aware of and have done proofs of concept for, but you cannot really compare the list prices because, as a big user of NetApp storages, we have totally different prices than some list prices. Still, the price information we got for other options are almost always less expensive than StorageGRID."
"The product's continual innovation and enhancement in integration capabilities with other NetApp solutions could be better."
"It has its quirks here and there, but it is an older NetApp system."
"I would like to see them integrate more with the monitoring platforms. It is a bit difficult to get automated monitoring of the system."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Because of the SSD, it is cheaper because I am not purchasing so many disks."
"We do not incur additional costs beyond the licensing fee."
"Price is about the only thing that's wrong with it. A little bit better pricing would be great."
"We evaluated Oracle and Hitachi, but Pure Storage had the better pricing."
"My organization has a yearly license, but I believe that Pure Storage FlashArray has capacity-based licenses as well. I'm definitely happy with the pricing."
"Cost-wise, it's been very effective."
"I would rate the pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray a five out of ten. It is expensive but not too much."
"Cost-wise, I imagine that the product's price would probably give you a nosebleed if you were a younger company."
"Like most cloud providers, IBM likely charges based on storage capacity, typically per gigabyte or terabyte. Their pricing is competitive when compared to AWS or Microsoft."
"IBM Cloud is cheaper than AWS. If you want to scale your cloud infrastructure, it can be bought at almost the same price."
"Pricing is not cheap."
"You have the option of a monthly or yearly license. Most customers choose the monthly option. I understand what you would like to say. IBM also lets you choose among four types of Cloud Object Storage. The difference is usage, performance, etc. Of course, high-performance storage is more expensive, while low-performance storage is for cold data, and it's really cheap."
"Buying the solution is expensive, but it saves you money down the line when you factor in the logistics of not having to buy tapes."
"The pricing of StorageGRID falls within the typical range for enterprise-grade solutions and is comparable to other vendors such as Dell, NetApp, and Pure Storage."
"The pricing is quite flexible and depends on the specific customer requirements. The initial cost is primarily based on the desired capacity, so it's not a fixed price."
"I rate the product pricing around five out of ten—it's negotiable, depending on the circumstances."
"It is very cost-effective."
"We pay for a license annually."
"Creating your own data stores, backups, or storage grids, helps eliminate all these costs of downloading all the data back after you downloaded to the cloud."
"The licensing that the S3 service provides them from a FabricPool standpoint is more attractive than the licensing from AWS or Azure."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business66
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise152
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise11
 

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?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
What needs improvement with IBM Cloud Object Storage?
The interface can feel clunky and outdated compared to AWS S3 or Azure Blob Storage. While scalable, latency can be...
What is your primary use case for IBM Cloud Object Storage?
I do not use IBM Cloud Object Storage directly, but I was part of a consultancy company that managed it. During my pr...
What do you like most about NetApp StorageGRID?
The management portals have most significantly improved our data retrieval times. They've made it much easier to rest...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp StorageGRID?
As an administrator, I was not involved in the pricing of NetApp StorageGRID. From what I understood, it was cheaper ...
What needs improvement with NetApp StorageGRID?
The upgrades of NetApp StorageGRID present challenges. It's a rolling upgrade, node by node. At one point, one node w...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
Cleversafe
Storage GRID
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Bitly, Dreamstime, Prime Research
ASE, DARZ GmbH
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cloud Object Storage vs. NetApp StorageGRID and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.