Kaminario K2 [EOL] vs NetApp AFF comparison

Silk and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Additionally, 94% of Silk users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Kaminario K2 [EOL] and NetApp AFF based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Everpure (formerly Pure Storage) and others in All-Flash Storage.

To learn more, read our detailed All-Flash Storage Report (Updated: August 2026).

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

August 2026

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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

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV

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.

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Engineerdb78

Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

A solution with a simple configuration and good stability but it's quite expensive

Access to technical support should be improved for our region. Technical support is good, but they're very hard to access. When we have a problem with this storage, it's usually related to a very bad configuration. All-Flash Storage is very, very expensive. They are important solutions so I don't really have any ideas about how to rectify this. The device could use better monitoring tools.

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Mir Gulzar Ahmed

IT Manager at Synergy Computers

Unified storage has delivered efficient AI analytics and low latency for critical workloads

There might be some lag or response time with respect to support cases, but even then I will rate it 8.5 out of 10. All of this is the same for all product ranges, whether E-series, NetApp AFF, or FAS series, because they are very efficient to respond. The only reason I rated it 8.5 is because the warehouse for spare parts, when a problem comes, a spare is needed to replace it, for example, a disk. In Pakistan, they have only one warehouse in Karachi. This warehouse manages all the problems when a problem comes. They ship the part based on the customer use case and customer service request. That is the only reason I rate it 8.5 because they have only one warehouse in Pakistan, which is in Karachi. For example, if a problem comes in Islamabad, it will take time to deliver the spare because the part will be shipped from Karachi to Islamabad, which will take around maybe a day. Other OEMs have their warehouses in Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi also. In terms of part replacement requirements, they are very efficient in that area because they have warehouses in multiple cities of Pakistan.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The pricing of the product is very competitive to others in the market for Flash and NVMe storage, and from an ROI standpoint, if you consider compression and de-duplication and all that, you get a pretty good ratio."

"It simplifies building out the storage."

"The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is the complete set of functions it provides."

"We saw a vast improvement when we switched over to using the Pure Storage model over the XtremIO."

"Once we solved the data reduction and what Pure does we were hooked."

"It upgrades in place which means we'll be using it well into the future."

"Their REST API is wonderful, well-documented, and easy to use."

"It has good stability for our company."

More Everpure FlashArray pros

"The K2 has basically removed storage as a bottleneck in our datacenter."

"The increased performance is many times above our previous array performance in all metrics. Integration with vSphere features is also a definite plus."

"Ease of use: My installers - my administrators over the system - they love how easy and fast it is to install and spin up a LUN and get going."

"Scale out is a differentiator for them, especially in the enterprise market. It's key for a lot of customers."

"From my perspective, it is a huge success fulfilling everything we needed and more!"

"Improved performance by more than 50x on our application."

"Technical support is absolutely great."

"The speed and, for us in particular in what we're doing, the data de-duplication."

More Kaminario K2 [EOL] pros

"Two important features that NetApp AFF has are the performance and the capacity to save data against attacks in general or hardware failure."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its simplicity. It is easy to use."

"AFF has opened our eyes in a different light of how storage value works. In the past, we looked at it more as just a container where we could just dump our customer dBms and let the customers use it in terms of efficiency. Today, to be able to replicate that data to a different location, use that data to recover your environment or be able to have the flexibility with the solution and data. These are things which piqued our interest. It's something that we're willing to provide as a solution to our customers."

"Based on our experience with AFF, we are definitely more likely to consider NetApp for mission critical storage systems in the future because it's the same quality and the same value for money as we have always come to expect from them."

"The most valuable features are the performance and the storage efficiency, due to the compression and deduplication... The efficiency is very important because we can buy fewer disks for more data."

"We have been able to successfully use their high availability as well as run online upgrades without any disruption."

"The biggest benefit of NetApp AFF is the performance."

"The improvement for us has been space savings on the All Flash FAS platform, with data space savings almost three times better than what we have right now and tripled performance for the customer."

More NetApp AFF pros

Cons

"Pure Storage takes a hit in the minds and opinions of some of the customers because they cannot customize things as much as compared to a legacy storage provider's appliance such as NetApp, Dell EMC, or even HPE."

"Based on my experience with various technologies like EMC, NetApp, and Pure Storage, one area for improvement is compliance certifications. NetApp excels in this area, particularly in the American Army or defense sector, where NetApp has approval, whereas others are striving to achieve the same. NetApp also delivers security, ransomware protection, and scale-up capabilities more effectively."

"For large storage needs, it is expensive."

"Currently, the solution fails to support file screening."

"The pricing needs to be improved as they offer very high budgeting prices. Searching is a big challenge in Pure Storage FlashArrays, especially when trying to restore a VM."

"When we were doing some tests, we found that there was an I/O freeze when they were switching the controller."

"A three wave application or multi wave application synchronization would be an improvement."

"The only thing is that we've had to upgrade controllers a few times because we ended up wanting to use more stuff on here."

More Everpure FlashArray cons

"The interface look and feel could be improved."

"Replication and de-duplication could be better."

"There are a few areas where the system could be improved. Examples would be that the system currently has a 15TB LUN size limit and that snapshots need to be scheduled through script API instead of the GUI."

"There are some mid-market SMB customers that it may not fit the best for from a pricing perspective, but for the vast majority of our customers, once we aware of it and learned about the technology which it performed with, it fits a very useful metric."

"Access to technical support should be improved for our region. Technical support is good, but they're very hard to access."

"A single pane of glass to monitor/manage multiple arrays would be helpful."

"On the road map, I'm hoping to see Active Directory integration. Right now, you still have to use a local admin account to log in and manage everything."

"I'd give it a perfect rating if I could push it to 300,000 IOPS like they promote; we just haven't been able to push that many IOPS out of our system."

More Kaminario K2 [EOL] cons

"We have had issues with CIFS presentations and outages, so if that was removed, we could do seamless upgrades without affecting CIFS presentations. That would be an advantage. That's about the only improvement I can think of."

"It needs higher IOPS."

"Their customer support can be better. When we have an outage, we need to wait until it is escalated to L3 which takes a lot of time."

"NetApp could focus even more on the configuration."

"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."

"There are two areas that I think NetApp needs to improve upon, pricing structure and support."

"The ONTAP S3 implementation is not feature-complete as compared to StorageGRID. We had to move our lakeFS instance from ONTAP S3 based on AFF to StorageGRID."

"With NetApp AFF, I see some security reports that indicate bugs or BHP that could crash the system."

More NetApp AFF cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pure Storage has not helped us to reduce our licensing costs."

"The best features come included without any additional cost."

"We lost a lot of customers because we couldn't compete on price with other vendors."

"There are no licensing fees or other costs."

"There are no fees for licensing. The hardware is paid for only once."

"The price of the Pure Storage Flash Array is too high and there needs to be more contact clarity. We went with the Evergreen plan and I don't have clarity on what am I supposed to pay each year or every three years. There was not much contract clarity."

"Pure Storage is all-flash, so this sometimes tends to make it a bit more expensive in the beginning."

"The solution is expensive."

More Everpure FlashArray pricing and cost advice

"All features are provided in the licensing. The cost of Kaminario was less than the cost of a hybrid array."

"Licensing is very straightforward. The cost was considerably lower than other products we looked at."

"The licensing is all-inclusive."

"Kaminario is very competitive on price. They also have a pay per TB model."

"The "extra" costs associated with features and options that are available off the shelf with Kaminario, make their value proposition extremely competitive."

"The Kaminario setup is simple and there are no hidden licensing fees so this area is a relief."

"I would like them to come down in price. It is as expensive as EMC, Hitachi, and other major vendors."

"I do not deal with pricing, but the pricing of NetApp and Dell seems pretty close. NetApp support is cheaper than Dell support."

"I am able to store two times more data than what I'm purchasing, which affects the way funds are being utilized."

"NetApp AFF's pricing is competitive. It is not expensive or cheap. The tool's pricing is based on configurations and can cost around 150-160 dollars for 70 TB of storage."

"From an application standpoint, we have seen a lot of return investment on the speeds and responsiveness of the actual storage."

"Obviously depending on the price point, NetApp is obviously a little more expensive than your generic Dell SAN solution or whatever."

"The list price of AFF is too expensive... they need to be careful with the pricing of the new NVMe disks. They are way too expensive."

"We benefited from implementing all-flash by reducing our data center footprint. We took it from 30 racks to just over five. This is one of the biggest savings for us."

"Once we did get into the NetApp ecosystem, we realized that the cost effectiveness was greater than we originally thought."

More NetApp AFF pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user186357

Solutions Architect with 51-200 employees

Jan 28, 2015

NetApp vs. XtremIO

Is there another storage platform as feature rich as NetApp FAS? I think it is fair to say that NetApp FAS running Clustered Data ONTAP is a very feature rich platform – the move to the clustered version of ONTAP has brought many next-generation features including Scale-out and Non-disruptive…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Construction Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

19%

Construction Company

15%

Outsourcing Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Construction Company

10%

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	71
Midsize Enterprise	38
Large Enterprise	159

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	9

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	47
Large Enterprise	242

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...

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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...

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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...

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What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?

Well, Is one thing NetApp Storage has vs other brand is the mix of protocol CIFS with NFS booth working together in t...

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What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?

This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended c...

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What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?

The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matt...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 10% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 7% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 7% of the time

VAST Data vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 6% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 4% of the time

More Everpure FlashArray Competitors

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs Kaminario K2 [EOL]

Compared 33% of the time

Huawei OceanStor vs Kaminario K2 [EOL]

Compared 16% of the time

Tintri VMstore T7000 vs Kaminario K2 [EOL]

Compared 14% of the time

More Kaminario K2 [EOL] Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp AFF

Compared 8% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs NetApp AFF

Compared 8% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs NetApp AFF

Compared 6% of the time

VMware vSAN vs NetApp AFF

Compared 4% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs NetApp AFF

Compared 4% of the time

More NetApp AFF Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Everpure FlashArray

August 2026

Download Everpure FlashArray product report

Buyer's Guide

Kaminario K2 [EOL]

August 2026

Download Kaminario K2 [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp AFF

July 2026

Download NetApp AFF product report

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray

No data available

NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS

Overview

The FlashArray family delivers consistent, high-performance data services across block, file, and object workloads. As part of the Everpure Platform, it provides the foundation for a unified data plane, enabling applications to reliably access, protect, and manage data across environments with simplicity and predictability. With built-in capabilities such as inline data reduction, snapshots, replication, and ransomware resilience, FlashArray ensures efficient operations, protected data, and consistent application uptime.

As the foundation of the (unified) data plane, FlashArray enables policy-driven automation, monitoring, and centralized management while integrating across cloud and on-premises environments. Built on an Evergreen architecture, it supports non-disruptive upgrades and continuous performance improvements over time while simplifying operations at scale.

What Key Features Does FlashArray Offer?

Simplicity and Speed: Easy management and rapid performance enhancements.
Data Reduction: Effective deduplication and compression.
Flash Architecture: Seamless upgrades and outstanding resilience.
VMware Integration: Excellent compatibility with virtualization platforms.
Predictive Analytics: Strong insights for proactive management.

What Benefits Should Users Consider?

Reliability: Proactive support with minimal downtime.
Efficiency: Reduced storage footprint and enhanced data management.
Performance: Faster processing speeds and low latency.
User Experience: Simplified management with Evergreen model.

In industries like finance, banking, and healthcare, FlashArray supports high-performance storage needs focusing on virtualization and database environments. Employed for VMware workloads, disaster recovery, and storage provisioning, it ensures application performance in private or hybrid cloud setups while enhancing management of virtualized environments.

Everpure (formerly Pure Storage)

Kaminario K2 is the world’s only storage solution that delivers the predictability needed to handle the highly unpredictable world of modern businesses. This highly flexible all flash storage platform allows customers to cost-effectively scale capacity and performance to support their ever-changing business –seamlessly, on-demand and with no disruptions.

Data Sheet and eBook

Silk

NetApp AFF provides high-performance storage solutions, emphasizing speed and efficiency for demanding applications. Its features include low latency, inline deduplication, and seamless integration, making it ideal for businesses needing reliable storage and data management.

NetApp AFF stands out in offering rapid data access with features designed to meet the demands of high-speed environments. With capabilities such as low latency and inline deduplication, it ensures efficient data management. Data recovery and SnapMirror enhance its appeal for businesses focused on utility and integration with other NetApp systems. The clustered Data ONTAP enriches the user experience, making NetApp AFF a strong choice for those prioritizing usability and performance during migration. However, some users highlight the steep learning curve and high costs, along with the need for better integration, monitoring tools, and technical support. Improvement in migration, scalability, documentation, and automation is also desired, along with more competitive pricing.

What are its standout features?

Speed: Offers rapid data access for high-demand applications.
Low Latency: Ensures quick response times.
Inline Deduplication: Optimizes storage efficiency.
Seamless Integration: Integrates smoothly with NetApp systems.
SnapMirror: Facilitates efficient data recovery.
Clustered Data ONTAP: Enhances user experience.

What benefits should users look for?

High Performance: Supports critical applications with speed.
Reliability: Provides robust data management solutions.
Data Utility: Enhances data access and recovery options.
Efficient Migration: Ensures smooth transitions with minimal disruption.
Integration Support: Works well within existing NetApp environments.

NetApp AFF is commonly utilized in industries such as telecom, healthcare, and insurance that require high-performance storage. Virtualization, database management, file storage, and NFS/CIFS protocols are key use cases. It supports high availability and disaster recovery, serving as the backbone for VM and Hyper-V infrastructures. Organizations also benefit from its low latency and support for AI workloads, optimizing operational efficiencies.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas

Wargaming.net, El Rio Community Health Center, ECN, SpotOption, Ashkelon College, Clearwater Analytics, Intigua, Cobb EMC Customer Case Study

DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Everpure (formerly Pure Storage) and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: August 2026.

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