NetApp AFF A-Series vs Zadara comparison

Why PeerSpot?

NetApp and Zadara are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. NetApp is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.7, while Zadara is ranked #18 with an average rating of 8.2. NetApp holds a 0.9% mindshare in AFS, compared to Zadara’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Zadara users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NetApp AFF A-Series and Zadara 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.

To learn more, read our detailed NetApp AFF A-Series vs. Zadara Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

NetApp AFF A-Series vs. Zadara

September 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

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 6.6%, up from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF A-Series is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zadara is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray	6.6%
NetApp AFF A-Series	0.9%
Zadara	0.7%
Other	91.8%

All-Flash Storage

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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Raymond Ciscon

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.

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Adeilson Araujo

Arquiteto De Cloud at Claro Brasil

Hybrid data migration has reduced costs and now needs stronger security and database integration

I would like to share something that I believe could improve Zadara's process, which is the issue of communication with databases. Today we have MongoDB as a cloud service, so integration with databases in Zadara would bring better performance in connection in SaaS models and in dynamic models that could bring a platform and a solution that could increase Zadara's usage in the market and in its business scope. Zadara can improve in the database integration area as I mentioned. Zadara can have better dynamism such as MongoDB in SaaS and bring this better dynamism by connecting and offering it within the clouds as a possibility of block storage within that partner cloud, such as AWS EBS, Google's cloud storage, or something within Azure. Creating a stronger partnership where this block storage can become an API connectable across various clouds but native to those clouds would be beneficial. I noticed simplicity in the security part during the time I used Zadara, so I believe Zadara's security needs to improve to provide more and deliver more security visibility to the end customer so that they feel more secure with data encryption and attack protection. A WAF on the API connection that goes through greater protection, something along those lines, could help guarantee that the data is protected by Zadara.

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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

"Go with Pure (or a flasher rate which is similar) because of the ease of management and performance."

"All use cases for Everpure FlashArray are anything that requires a SAN should use it because it is the easiest thing on the market."

"It helps simplify storage. When you're running Pure all-flash, you don't have to do a lot of the old Oracle best practices. You don't have to worry about putting log files on a different disk channel than the data files, and those types of issues... That has made it vastly easier to do large volumes, rapid provisioning in databases, without taking a performance hit."

"What I like most about this solution, is the speed, resiliency and scalability."

"As we needed to grow in capacity, we were able to do so without increasing footprint by replacing smaller devices with larger ones."

"I never have to worry about its performance or if it is the root cause of an issue."

"The most valuable feature is how it simplifies the management of the SAN."

"I find Pure Storage FlashArray to be much better than traditional storage because it has a GUI interface. It makes the process of allocating the storage much easier, and most activities are automated. It is like clicking a button for every task."

More Everpure FlashArray pros

"NetApp AFF A-Series is faster and more robust compared to the all-flash storage of NetApp."

"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 helps us get the fastest output."

"NetApp support is fantastic."

"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."

"The deduplication and compression options from NetApp AFF A-Series are good to use for efficient storage capacity."

"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."

More NetApp AFF A-Series pros

"One of the most valuable features is its integration with other cloud solutions. We have a presence within Amazon EC2 and we leverage compute instances in there. Being able to integrate with compute, both locally within Zadara, as well as with other cloud vendors such as Amazon, is very helpful, while also being able to maintain extremely low latency between those connections."

"A nice feature is the immutable object storage, which can be used in conjunction with Veeam."

"Being able to scale on demand, and being able to get out of our security operation center, and not having to purchase hardware upfront, has drastically reduced the overhead that was required to maintain our information. We have also gained additional capabilities in terms of speed of replicating that information."

"We know that we have a reputable, reliable, and consistent vendor on our side, that to me is important."

"Zadara is a fully-fledged platform, and our customers are happy with its use."

"Zadara offered better cost and better cost-benefit regarding cloud compatibility and also data traffic over the internet."

"The most valuable feature of Zadara is its ease of use and safety, and overall the solution is a complete package with all the features needed."

"Zadara was a key enabler for us to be able to enter the cloud business because if it wasn't for them, it would have taken us a lot longer."

More Zadara pros

Cons

"During heavy load situations with 100K IOPS on one specific port, it requires more granularity level for distribution."

"We need to add more storage in Pure Storage FlashArray with the cluster mode activated for us to have better performance."

"If they could make it cheaper, that would be something."

"The solution is expensive."

"I can't see where they can make anything better, unless, of course, they lower their prices even more."

"It was not proactive communication."

"I would like to see them lower the costs."

"I like what they're doing, but some of my customers complain that they do not have all the bells and whistles and knobs to fine-tune workloads that some of the competitors have. In my opinion, that's good. All customers don't have dedicated storage gurus, and they can get themselves into trouble if they fine-tune too many of those high-performance knobs, but they do get knocked down. 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. I personally think 95% of my customers are better off letting the system fine-tune itself. That was something that you needed to do 12 or 15 years ago, but now with all-flash, the technology can handle what it needs to handle. Customers just end up shooting themselves in the foot if they are tweaking too many default settings."

More Everpure FlashArray cons

"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."

"NetApp AFF A-Series should work on cost. The solutions, especially enterprise-level storage, should be more affordable to improve their appeal to businesses."

"The solution's ransomware protection could be improved."

"Pricing could always be lower."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"There is room for improvement in pricing as it is currently quite expensive."

"The initial installation was difficult because many steps required the command line interface (CLI). Maintenance can also be complicated, especially when deeper troubleshooting requires navigating the CLI and searching for logs."

"There are still some storage features that they lack. For example, other vendors implemented the auto-tiering feature a long time ago, while Zadara Storage Cloud is just coming out with this feature today. So, they are a little bit late compared to the market."

"Zadara can be improved by making their interfaces more attractive. They currently look like simple PHP interfaces, but they need to customize and work on their interfaces and user interfaces significantly."

"I would like to see them be a little bit more proactive in terms of the patches and updates that are available."

"Right now, to use Zadara, you have to go through some hoops."

"Some of the features are a little bit slow to come to market."

"We had a lot of issues with the Zadara recently regarding performance, reports, and offloads, the customers could not send backups to Zadara."

More Zadara cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a good price point and it's a solid product for the price."

"It was less expensive than some of the alternatives. It's not as though it was a premium price to get that kind of quality. It's a very competitive product from a price perspective..."

"There are no licensing fees aside from the support."

"We evaluated Oracle and Hitachi, but Pure Storage had the better pricing."

"We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO)."

"Once you purchase Pure Storage FlashArray it is all-inclusive, you receive all the licenses needed."

"The pricing is an issue. However, being all-flash, it will always be sort of expensive."

"Pure Storage FlashArray is expensive."

More Everpure FlashArray pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"The pricing and licensing are very simple and the cost is predictable, although, like everything that you pay for as you use, you have to be mindful of what you're using."

"If you just take the street price of Zadara Storage Cloud and look up the price or cost per hour, then you could think that Zadara Storage Cloud is extremely expensive or a solution only for enterprise use. That is not true. You need to compare the entire system. This means that you don't stop looking at just the street price, but you need to consider all the features, requirements, and costs of support as well as the extra cost that other vendors have. Other players just play with hidden, additional costs. Everything is included in Zadara Storage Cloud's licensing cost; what you get is what you pay for."

"It is a nice licensing model and it makes it quite simple because we just pay for what we use, and the bill that comes shows us exactly what customers are using what resources."

"For our use, it's appropriately priced and overall, it's proved to be very cost-effective against other tier-one vendors."

"The price of Zadara is very good and it covers everything. There is no subscription needed."

"One of the factors that ruled out several providers was cost. They were way too expensive for the volume of data that we needed and the speed at which we needed to be able to manage it. There aren't a lot of providers that can do that."

"The pricing is very competitive and the fact that they have very compelling discounts for multi-year commitments is great."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

15%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

12%

Construction Company

12%

Outsourcing Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	73
Midsize Enterprise	38
Large Enterprise	160

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Large Enterprise	8

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Zadara?

Zadara can be improved by making their interfaces more attractive. They currently look like simple PHP interfaces, bu...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Zadara?

My main use case for Zadara is to build and validate the GPU as a Service and the AI sovereignty that they're working...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Zadara?

Regarding Zadara's AI capabilities, I think it depends on the MSPs that they are performing collaborations with, and ...

See all answers

Comparisons

NetApp AFF vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 10% of the time

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 6% of the time

VAST Data vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 6% of the time

More Everpure FlashArray Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp AFF A-Series

Compared 20% of the time

NetApp AFF C-Series vs NetApp AFF A-Series

Compared 17% of the time

NetApp ASA vs NetApp AFF A-Series

Compared 13% of the time

Fujitsu Eternus AF Series vs NetApp AFF A-Series

Compared 10% of the time

Everpure FlashBlade vs NetApp AFF A-Series

Compared 5% of the time

More NetApp AFF A-Series Competitors

Amazon S3 vs Zadara

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon EC2 vs Zadara

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Zadara

Compared 5% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Zadara

Compared 4% of the time

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling vs Zadara

Compared 2% of the time

More Zadara Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Everpure FlashArray

October 2026

Download Everpure FlashArray product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

September 2026

Download NetApp AFF A-Series product report

Buyer's Guide

Zadara

September 2026

Download Zadara product report

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray

No data available

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)

NetApp AFF A-Series is ideal for high-performance storage in enterprise environments. It efficiently handles large-scale data and provides reliable storage for virtual machines, databases, and critical applications.

NetApp AFF A-Series stands out for its speed, reliability, and robust data protection features. Users find its management easy and appreciate the efficiency in handling large workloads. Its seamless integration with cloud services and high data transfer speeds with reduced latency enhance its appeal. Scalability and support for various applications make it a top choice for enterprises. However, there is room for improvement in documentation, technical support response time, and third-party application integration.

What are the standout features of NetApp AFF A-Series?

High Performance: Delivers fast data transfer speeds and reduces latency.
Data Protection: Robust features ensure data integrity and security.
Ease of Management: Simplified administration enhances efficiency.
Cloud Integration: Seamless integration with cloud services.
Scalability: Easily handles growing data and application demands.

What benefits should users look for?

Enhanced Efficiency: Streamlined management processes save time.
Increased Reliability: High reliability ensures continuous operation.
Improved Data Security: Advanced data protection features safeguard information.
Cost-Effective Scaling: Efficiently scales to meet growing storage needs.
Better Cloud Utilization: Leverages cloud capabilities for more flexibility.

NetApp AFF A-Series is implemented across industries to support virtual machines, large databases, and critical applications. It's particularly valuable in financial services for fast transaction processing, in healthcare for managing extensive patient records and imaging data, and in tech companies for supporting development environments and big data analytics.

NetApp

Zadara integrates cloud solutions with low latency and a pay-as-you-go model, offering user-friendly scalability and IOPS performance. Its robust features such as single-tenant experience and dedicated cores make it an essential choice for enterprise storage needs.

Zadara is designed for seamless cloud integration supporting major cloud vendors. Its offerings include dedicated cores and hybrid drive options within a scalable environment. Providing managed services, Zadara is adaptable with predictable pricing. Its reliability is enhanced by iSCSI service, supporting fault tolerance and data management across data centers.

What are the key features of Zadara?

Cloud Integration: Seamlessly supports major cloud vendors for easy deployment.
Low Latency: Ensures quick data access and processing.
Pay-as-You-Go: Flexible pricing model based on usage.
Single-Tenant Experience: Exclusive resources for enhanced performance.
Dedicated Cores: Provides consistent and reliable service quality.
Hybrid Drive Options: Offers a mix of storage solutions fitting diverse needs.
Managed Services Support: Comprehensive service management and support for users.

What benefits should users evaluate when considering Zadara?

Scalability: Easy to scale resources according to demand.
Flexibility in Deployment: Options for various enterprise storage configurations.
Predictable Pricing: Cost forecasts help manage budgets effectively.
User-Friendliness: Intuitive operations streamline processes.
IOPS Performance: High input/output operations per second for expedited tasks.

In industries managing large-scale data storage and disaster recovery, Zadara provides a foundation for secure and efficient data handling. It supports managed service providers with infrastructure solutions, including backup and disaster recovery, enabling seamless off-site storage and maintaining business continuity across different sectors.

Zadara

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

Time, Inc. A&E Network, The Washington Post, News UK, McGraw Hill, Gilt, Toshiba, Deloitte, VMware

Buyer's Guide

NetApp AFF A-Series vs. Zadara

September 2026

Free Report: NetApp AFF A-Series vs. Zadara

Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp AFF A-Series vs. Zadara and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.

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