We performed a comparison between NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) vs Pure Storage FlashArray
based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Pure Storage FlashArray has a slight edge in this comparison because users were happier with its ease of deployment and features.
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"One, it's easy to use and understand. You don't have to be an engineer or an expert to use this storage solution. That's the bad part of Dell PowerMAX. You have to go through very expensive education for one or two weeks and pay ten thousand dollars just to be able to use the product. With Pure Storage, you have a half-day workshop, and you know everything you need to know."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"The solution is scalable."
"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"Pure has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"Regarding features, SnapMirror is one we depend on right now. It helps us provide snapshots to the customers on request. There are many scenarios in which we might take snapshots in various daily use cases. We trigger the snapshots, which gives us a sense of security because we know we have this technology in place if something happens."
"The most valuable feature is the support. If we have any issues, we can call into NetApp and their support is really good."
"AFF has improved my organization because we now have better performance. We can scale up and we can create servers a lot faster now. With the storage that we had, it used to take a lot longer, but now we can provide the business what they need a lot faster."
"Replication would be one of the most valuable features."
"When we move to all-flash, our response times were reduced to microseconds."
"We have had issues before on our infrastructure where 20 to 30 percent of the people would come to us pointing the finger at the storage technology or storage back-end. That is now virtually zero."
"The most valuable features for AFF are the speed, durability, back up, the time, the workloads that we are using currently are much faster than what they used to be. We're getting a lot of different things out of All Flash."
"The speed is great. That's probably number one in terms of features we appreciate."
"The stability is very good. I've done destructive testing on it and never had any type of storage outages from it."
"I never have to worry about its performance or if it is the root cause of an issue."
"It is always out of the box, and ready to use."
"This solution is very scalable."
"We've had different types of storage, and three things of this solution are valuable. The first one is its outstanding performance. The second one is its stability. In the about three years that we've had it, we've had component failures, but we never had a service interruption or any data loss. The third one, which is really critical, is that it is super easy to use in terms of provisioning, storage, and managing the arrays. I'm able to maintain a multi-site environment with a couple of dozen arrays with a single mid-level storage admin."
"Having an intuitive user interface to get things running is great."
"The mobile app is very helpful."
"It comes with a large number of features out-of-the-box, which makes it easy for us to see problems and manage capacity."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"It is on the expensive side."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"Cleaning up false positives on alerts. We get a lot of those."
"It has not reduced our data center costs. NetApp charges a pretty penny for their stuff."
"The only downside to NetApp AFF is its price."
"The response to basic problems could be faster. They usually respond fast when there are critical issues, but you always want it right now."
"We should be able to manage NetApp AFF as per the desired usage and needs."
"Technical support is a little lackluster. Some of the issues that we've had were opening up tickets. They seem to be routed in the wrong direction or it takes one or two days to get a call back for simple tasks."
"I would like to see more frequent updates at a faster pace."
"Sometimes, NetApp support could be better. When the customers escalate, it can feel like everything's starting from scratch. These are rare cases. I'm not directly involved in support, but that's what I hear when something doesn't work."
"The product should improve its response time. I have also encountered issues with its configuration."
"I would like to see more detailed reporting on the data. However, it would be nice to know what are the exact VMs usage after deduplication and/or what that VMs actual latency and bandwidth is, outside of VMware."
"What it needs to do is work a little closer with solutions, like VMware, so it understands the particular workloads that are on it. Today, it does not understand the applications which are running against it."
"The initial setup of the product is complex."
"When we were doing some tests, we found that there was an I/O freeze when they were switching the controller."
"I want to learn more about command line usage which I have not explored much yet. However, there are many automated solutions for repetitive tasks. I would like to see additional features like performance monitoring, configuring of alerts, and the customization of alert thresholds in the next release."
"In the next version of this program, I would like to see increased security, higher encryption, and faster throughput."
"The support for NFS protocols right out-of-the-box need improvement. I'm used to other storage vendors who have NFS support right out-of-the-box, and Pure Storage doesn't seem to have anything."
NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 280 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 174 reviews. NetApp AFF is rated 9.0, while Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.2. 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 Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable". NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, VMware vSAN and NetApp FAS Series, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem, VMware vSAN and Dell Unity XT. See our NetApp AFF vs. Pure Storage FlashArray report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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