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Kaminario K2 [EOL] vs SolidFire 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)
Kaminario K2 [EOL]
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolidFire
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (28th)
 

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.
Engineerdb78 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Ramil Cerrada - PeerSpot reviewer
A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance
The most significant benefit lies in its exceptional performance, driven by its Flash-based architecture. This enhances routing speed and, consequently, database performance. The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results are essential.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."
"I appreciate the performance."
"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"The GUI is very straightforward and easy to use."
"It provides a full feature set without separate licensing (deduplication, compression, snapshot, asynchronous replication, stable performance, etc.)."
"The increased performance is many times above our previous array performance in all metrics. Integration with vSphere features is also a definite plus."
"Inline compression"
"The most valuable aspect is the use of solid-state storage drives instead of spinning drives."
"Data reduction and snapshot abilities: Smaller footprint in the datacenter (lower cost for power, cooling, etc.)."
"Logic/software management"
"Implementation of the solution is very simple."
"Feature-wise, it is a good solution allowing users to monitor and simplify their networks. The solution also provides its users with flexibility by enabling them to utilize its extensions."
"Overall performance of the solution."
"The square footage for doing development is at a premium when dealing with government networks. To be able to put a lot of IOPS in a lot of high-speed performing drives in a very small location which requires very little HVAC with very little power, it is very valuable to us."
"The system efficiency is excellent overall."
"Being able to provide quality of service as promised."
"It's got full API functionality and the performance is pretty steady."
"SolidFire provides seamless performance across your storage system when you need to scale up. Other storage systems do not do that."
"The scalability and being able to implement it quickly."
 

Cons

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."
"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."
"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"I would like to see LDAP for the management panel; I've been notified they might be currently working on it."
"The front panel of the drive shelf doesn't always seat firmly."
"The management graphical interface needs more improvement."
"I would like to see them work with Cisco, so it comes off the FIs, instead of having to go through my 10-gig network."
"I would like them to improve the look of the product’s external casing and shelves."
"The system currently has a 15TB LUN size limit and that snapshots need to be scheduled through script API instead of the GUI."
"I think it should have better performance with small files. With big data, its performance is top notch, but it is difficult to load small files."
"Improved scale and budget planning with flexibility of the solution for budget needs and efficiency for growth with the great optimization ratio due to the nature of our use."
"The user interface needs to be improved. Much of the client feedback involves comments such as "Oh, it's hard to navigate through.""
"You don't have business continuity with SolidFire. I think it could be a nice feature to have in the future."
"For example, the ease of use with the reporting. Right now it's not impossible, but you have to know Sequel. It's a little time consuming to get those customized reports in there."
"The scalability of HCI or SolidFire as such isn't a concern, but when you compare it to PowerMax or NetApp AFF series devices, scalability is a concern because it's only the drives that are connected to the nodes. We don't have any shelf connectivity."
"We are looking for, potentially, on the Active IQ reporting side, to do reporting based on the datastore. Right now, I can report on the whole SolidFire, or I can report on just a certain datastore or a volume. I'd like to take all of my VDI infrastructure, which as an example would be multiple datastores."
"A little better segregation of the multi-tenancy. Right now, it's just VLAN-specific, that's all you can do."
"We have a large fiber channel infrastructure, and that's one area that we haven't seen implemented in SolidFire, its more iSCSI."
"The inclusion of more protocols and interfaces would make it easier to integrate with other products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."
"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"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."
"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."
"The product is expensive."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"Kaminario is very competitive on price. They also have a pay per TB model."
"The Kaminario setup is simple and there are no hidden licensing fees so this area is a relief."
"The licensing is all-inclusive."
"I would like them to come down in price. It is as expensive as EMC, Hitachi, and other major vendors."
"The "extra" costs associated with features and options that are available off the shelf with Kaminario, make their value proposition extremely competitive."
"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."
"Based on what I heard from other people, its price was on the higher side."
"We would probably use SolidFire more, except we're getting more bang for our buck with our purchases of ONTAP right now, and the deal we made with NetApp, so it's more of just a cost decision"
"The price of this solution is more expensive than others."
"On a scale where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the solution between three and four. It is an expensive solution."
"It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for what you get."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
No data available
Financial Services Firm
36%
Computer Software Company
17%
Real Estate/Law Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 ...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about SolidFire?
The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance w...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolidFire?
It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay fo...
What needs improvement with SolidFire?
There is room for improvement with a focus on creating a centralized storage system, functioning similar to AWS. This...
 

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
Wargaming.net, El Rio Community Health Center, ECN, SpotOption, Ashkelon College, Clearwater Analytics, Intigua, Cobb EMC Customer Case Study
California Public Utilities Commission, RFA, 1&1, Ultimate Software , Endicia, ezVerify, MercadoLibre, Sungard Availability Services, ServInt, Elastx, Hosted Network, Colt, Crucial, iWeb, Datapipe, Databarracks
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: June 2025.
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