We performed a comparison between NetApp (All Flash FAS) and SolidFire 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 SolidFire. Even though the two products are straightforward to deploy and have good support, SolidFire has fewer valuable features and more areas that require improvement.
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."
"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The most valuable features are the speed and performance for our transactional workloads for our databases."
"I like NetApp AFF's deduplication."
"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."
"The NVMe flash cache is the most useful feature. It lowers transactional speed even more."
"The tool's most valuable feature is SVM. I also like the speed and response of the filers."
"The most valuable feature of AFF is that it offers better visibility and control over performance, ensuring it meets customer needs effectively."
"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."
"SolidFire is one of the products that does have great APIs right out-of-the-box. It works great. The tools and the other stuff seem to work a little better right out-of-the-box than the ONTAP stuff does, C-Mode."
"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."
"Being able to provide quality of service as promised."
"Overall performance of the solution."
"Templates are already predefined for it. If you're coding it up, it will take two days. You can pick up a template right there from the API, and it just works for you. Implementation done in 10 minutes."
"We can just buy them, scale them as we need on demand, and we don't have to spend so many front end cycles on designing the architecture."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its scalability."
"The most valuable feature is the performance, as well as how you manage performance on the system."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"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."
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"In terms of improvement, the support could be a little better."
"We'd like to see improvement in the time to retrieve from the Cloud, whether it's on-prem to cloud and whether it's public or private cloud."
"Its integration could be improved."
"For ONTAP, in general, the deduplication ratio and Snapshot limitation are areas that need improvement. There is a global limitation on the number of Snapshots or clones that can be spun off of a particular Snapshot. If those limitations are increased, it might be helpful."
"I don't like the newest GUI. It needs more options. Some features have been removed. Oversight is not as good in the new GUI compared to the previous version. Though, it might be something that we just need to get used to."
"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."
"Implementation needs to be improved."
"NetApp should have a local presence in Pakistan."
"One of the challenges we faced while using SolidFire was that the product line that we were using in our company was discontinued."
"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."
"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 have a large fiber channel infrastructure, and that's one area that we haven't seen implemented in SolidFire, its more iSCSI."
"You don't have business continuity with SolidFire. I think it could be a nice feature to have in the future."
"The user interface needs to be improved. Much of the client feedback involves comments such as "Oh, it's hard to navigate through.""
"A little better segregation of the multi-tenancy. Right now, it's just VLAN-specific, that's all you can do."
"We had some false positives, power supplies failing, and that's really been about it. We had a couple of glitches during some upgrade processes but nothing that was really concerning to us."
NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 280 reviews while SolidFire is ranked 19th in All-Flash Storage with 33 reviews. NetApp AFF is rated 9.0, while SolidFire is rated 8.2. 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 SolidFire writes "A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance". NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Pure Storage FlashArray and VMware vSAN, whereas SolidFire is most compared with Dell PowerStore, VMware vSAN and Pure Storage FlashArray. See our NetApp AFF vs. SolidFire report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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