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NetApp AFF C-Series vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays 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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
4th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
219
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp AFF C-Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
27th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
3.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp EF-Series All Flash ...
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
24th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 7.5%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF C-Series is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 1.2%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray7.5%
NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays1.2%
NetApp AFF C-Series0.6%
Other90.7%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Shailendra Choudhary - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Reliable flash storage has delivered strong data reduction and secured sensitive information
There is still some room for improvement when it comes to scalability, mainly in the interoperability and integration aspects. Every storage vendor has certain limitations, and this is not limited to NetApp; it applies to everyone in the industry. I do not see any other significant areas for improvement with NetApp AFF C-Series at this time. NetApp is working on their roadmap, which is solid, and they are developing certain features that are yet to be released.
Tayo Olubanke - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at GCET
Offers flexibility and top-notch technology
You can go to bed peacefully if you have a NetApp. If you have NetApp within your data center, you get to know about power failure if you are using it. Your NetApp will still come alive. Even if it does not come alive, I can say that it is not like other tools when it comes to dealing with power failure. The tool is affordable, and the technology is top-notch. It is the only technology that has software for what we call inline compression and deduplication. All the products under NetApp are aiming to use AI. I know that you can achieve whatever you want to do with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The pricing of the product is very competitive to others in the market for Flash and NVMe storage, and from an ROI standpoint, if you consider compression and de-duplication and all that, you get a pretty good ratio."
"The initial setup was very straightforward and very quick. It was up and running in our data center within 24 hours of receiving it."
"You get what you pay for; it is expensive, but it really works, so I would really recommend using Pure Storage."
"If I want a product which has reliability and high speed, and Pure Storage is the first name that comes out of my mouth."
"I am very satisfied with this solution and I would recommend it to others."
"The product cheaper compared to other solutions concerning the technology that they are using."
"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."
"Their technical support is excellent. It's the best out of any of the vendors we work with."
"NetApp offers a cost-effective solution with very robust hardware."
"NetApp AFF C-Series is a good product for entry-level flash storage, the system is competitive in terms of pricing, and the value proposition is strong."
"Our batch processing time went down from 14 hours to seven hours with this solution."
"It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The stability, speed, and reliability are the solution's best features."
"It's still worth purchasing as the support is good and also the performance is very good."
"For anyone who has critical workloads like Oracle databases or DB2, NetApp All-Flash Arrays will suit their needs, as long as it fits within their budget."
"You can't beat it for the price."
"The management of it is very simple. that is the most valuable feature."
"We know this solution's software, hardware devices, and support are very good."
 

Cons

"The technical support is okay, but could be improved."
"In terms of improvement, Everpure FlashArray could have more attractive UI/UX design compared to other solutions."
"They need to find another way of doing data protection, RAID is not working very well."
"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."
"The cost of the storage needs improvement."
"The price should be lower."
"I’d love to view the average, minimum and maximum performance in the reports (Analysis tab - Performance) but it is only graphics and you need to export data in CSV to find this information."
"Reports of performance and LUN utilization could be improved."
"We faced one bug that impacted our NetApp last month, and it took some time to identify the underlying issue."
"We faced one bug that impacted our NetApp last month, and it took some time to identify the underlying issue."
"The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The price of the All Flash solution is very high."
"Monitoring and management handling in enterprise environments could be improved."
"It needs a better management tool."
"Nonetheless, there are a couple of other things that NetApp hasn't done right."
"The EF-Series is not the most scalable solution."
"The solution's technical support is not as good as it is supposed to be since you have to push them to get support."
"It's very difficult to manage the CLI."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution can be a bit expensive. There is an additional fee for support."
"The guaranty that Pure Storage provides when you purchase it doesn't meet the overall capacity needs to provide extra storage, if needed. Thus, it is not meeting our expectations."
"It is cost-effective because after buying a subscription, they provide a service to upgrade hardware for free. They are providing so many features. When you consider the features provided, it is cost-effective."
"The price, in general, is around $100,000, however, I know it costs more."
"The price-to-performance is good. I looked at Pure about three to four years back, but the price-to-performance wasn't right for us. Now, it's right."
"We have seen a reduction in the TCO, because Pure Storage is partnering with Belfrics. This partnership reduces our latency and space."
"Pure is not a cheap product. It is not something that is inexpensive. But, the total cost of ownership tends to be lower than with other solutions, because you don't need a lot of expertise, you don't need a lot of training or very expensive engineers or very expensive consultants."
"It is a cheaper solution."
Information not available
"One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to renew the license."
"NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is an expensive product."
"Its cost-effectiveness is a major selling point. Compared to other storage vendors, the EF-Series offers excellent value for its price. It's truly a leading product in the industry."
"The price point for EF is considerably lower than the alternatives."
"Cheaper pricing is always good. NetApp has been doing everything the right way. They've been figuring out things really well, going in the right direction."
"This solution is not available to many users because the cost is very expensive."
"They need to improve its pricing. The storage market is dying. So, they need to improve the price because it should reach all people. NetApp is one of the top ones, and they are charging a little bit of royalty as compared to other storage solutions."
"Price-wise, NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is costlier than Dell. You have to buy a lot of licenses separately."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
8%
University
7%
Construction Company
13%
Performing Arts
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business66
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise155
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise18
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
What needs improvement with NetApp AFF C-Series?
There is still some room for improvement when it comes to scalability, mainly in the interoperability and integration...
What is your primary use case for NetApp AFF C-Series?
I would recommend NetApp AFF C-Series for various types of companies depending on the use case. A small company, an e...
What advice do you have for others considering NetApp AFF C-Series?
I recommend Dell PowerStore to some of my customers, but usually the differences are taken care of. I focus primarily...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?
One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to rene...
What needs improvement with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?
The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. I want NetApp's supp...
What is your primary use case for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?
There are so many things to talk about around the use cases associated with the tool. There are so many reasons why I...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Information Not Available
RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp AFF C-Series vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.