We performed a comparison between NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) came out ahead of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. The two solutions have similar deployment difficulty, price range, and support quality, but NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays has fewer valuable features, according to its users.
"This solution has improved our organization. In the past, we had reports that were taking up to two hours and after switching to SSD storage the overall processing power dropped to half an hour. The end users saw an immediate performance gain."
"It's very fast and very easy to use. It performs well and is both flexible and compatible. We like it because it's easy to use."
"Data reduction and compression. Sub millisecond latency."
"Performance, dedupe, and that it works well with database workloads are its most valuable features."
"The most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray are simplicity, ease of use, and dashboard management."
"Our storage phones home. It is smart and intelligent in that aspect, which has been huge for us. We don't have to be storage administrators."
"Technical support is excellent. I've had very good responses from technical support. We had a couple of cases where we needed support. Some of the communications were purely over email and some has been an actual call to the service desk."
"The scalability is good."
"When we move to all-flash, our response times were reduced to microseconds."
"It is easy to manage data through the GUI by using Active IQ and the unified manager."
"Scalability is excellent. If we need more space, it's a no downtime solution. It's harder to get the funding than it is to get the solution itself."
"Most of our business-critical systems are provisioned from the NetApp AFF system. Compared to others, we have a minimal latency. Configuring the DR for high availability or migrating the volumes from one box to another is pretty easy with NetApp AFF."
"We have never had a failure. We can upgrade as we move along with zero downtime."
"The most valuable features of this solution are snapshotting and cloning."
"Batch times went from approximately seven hours down to about two and a half. Functionality during the day, such as taking or removing snapshots and cloning instances, is higher than it has ever been."
"The most valuable feature of AFF is that it offers better visibility and control over performance, ensuring it meets customer needs effectively."
"I would have to say performance at this point, because the application it is based on is so diverse."
"The main advantage of this solution is performance."
"Compared to Dell Unity XT, what I see as an advantage in NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is the fact that it is more scalable...The performance of the product is good."
"The solution allows us to segregate one storage unit from another."
"We do a lot of in-house, application-dependent type things, where we find the different niches to the different things. Certain things they do better. We've found that it actually does very well on some of our higher-end applications."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to set a specific margin of performance to a specific workload."
"Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market."
"We use it for our VDI environment, and have not had any complaints with it."
"The GUI is simplistic and basic. I feel like it's explanatory, but not enough, it needs a little more to it."
"One thing I'd like to see in a future release is integration between their main storage array and what they call their FlashBlade product; to be able to snapshot directly from the primary array into multiple different backup copies on FlashBlade."
"The backend of this solution utilizes an Active/Passive architecture, rather than an Active/Active architecture, which is a disadvantage, when compared to some of its competitors. Its storage capacity should be expanded in the next release."
"There are scenarios with very specific functionality around VMware integration particularly to do with the way we'd like to manage LUNs in VMware. The tools are pretty good but there's room for improvement there."
"They are doing some stuff with containers and an object search. These could be improved, because containers is one of the main topics that we are talking with our customers about."
"It is a bit expensive."
"It is way in excess of what we need. If anything, we could see a bit more speed. I'm just comparing it with what some of my colleagues who are implementing their own systems do."
"In the next release I would like to see integration into other third-party player providers like Google."
"The scaling needs improvement. NetApp is limited for scaling options."
"When you look at the competitors, they have some features available, for example on the deduplication side."
"A graphical user interface displaying efficiency metrics, such as compression and deduplication rates, would be a great addition."
"We were migrating from Data ONTAP 7-Mode to its Cluster-Mode. Therefore, we had to get swing gear, then do the migration from loner gear and back onto our new gear. This was a bit difficult. It took us several months to do multiple migrations."
"Another issue is that for smaller customers, NetApp doesn't have enough disk sizes. You begin with a 980-gigabyte disk and the next size is 3.8 terabytes. There aren't any disk sizes in between. Competitors have more choices in disk sizes."
"We should be able to manage NetApp AFF as per the desired usage and needs."
"It would be very useful if we could do the NFS to CIFS file transfer, but it is not supported at this time."
"The SRA stuff that intergrades with SRM is a problem point. It's a pain point. The support personnel aren't always knowledgeable on that product. At times, they are not even aware what product is supported and what is not, when one has been deprecated and there is a new one out, and what the bug fixes of the newer version are."
"It was difficult to implement and lacks some additional features that would be useful, but as a solution fits a particular need for our organization."
"Better support technicians for CAPP."
"The dashboard could be simplified."
"We have used IBM previously. We found that the storage from IBM was poor and we chose NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays because it can scale very easily."
"The solution's technical support is not as good as it is supposed to be since you have to push them to get support."
"Things like the FlexClones, SnapVault, SnapMirror, all of that. Some of it's available on the EF series, but we like what we have in the FAS system."
"The pricing could be cheaper and it should have documentation in more languages, specifically, Russian."
"The management interface, while very reliable, it seems a little old now and could maybe use a little modernization."
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NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 280 reviews while NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is ranked 23rd in All-Flash Storage with 38 reviews. NetApp AFF is rated 9.0, while NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of NetApp AFF writes "Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays writes "A storage solution that offers great stability, resilience, and support". NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell Unity XT, Dell PowerStore, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, VMware vSAN and VAST Data, whereas NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Huawei OceanStor Dorado, HPE Primera and IBM FlashSystem. See our NetApp AFF vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays report.
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