Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

NetApp AFF vs NetApp ASA comparison

Sponsored
 

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 X NVMe
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
18th
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp AFF
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
314
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp ASA
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
21st
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
7th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise SAN (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.6%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF is 8.7%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp ASA is 1.6%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetApp AFF8.7%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe1.6%
NetApp ASA1.6%
Other88.1%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256
Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades
I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.
KennethEtsula - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Manager at Spartec
Offers seamless installation and efficient data handling with robust support
NetApp AFF provides an all-flash storage solution for unified SAN solutions, supporting both SAN and NAS functionalities. Data reduction capabilities such as deduplication, compression, and compaction are standard features included with the license in NetApp AFF. With the storage efficiency from a NetApp AFF installation, users can manage substantial data running on all-flash. The features such as compaction and compression provide storage efficiency guarantees in an all-flash environment.
Punit Waghela - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Specialist at Softcell Technologies Limited
Runs smoothly and provides excellent performance and throughput
I love the SnapMirror and autonomous ransomware protection features. SnapMirror is used for replication purposes in a DC/DR setup. If something goes wrong with the data center or production DR, the data automatically gets replicated to the DR site, and the DR site becomes operational, allowing continued access to data. Autonomous ransomware protection helps recover data in case of any threat or ransomware. Ransomware is increasing daily, and according to Gartner, most companies have to pay a ransom if a ransomware attack occurs in their environment. NetApp provides a ransomware guarantee program where they commit that if data cannot be recovered in case of ransomware, NetApp will provide compensation, which adds significant value.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."
"The latency is good."
"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."
"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."
"The solution is scalable."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."
"Others in the market are not as reliable as NetApp FAS series because it is a built-in feature."
"The stability is solid. It doesn't fail on us, which is exactly what we want. We are in a critical business that we can't have any percentage of downtime."
"The most valuable features of AFF are its speed and the responsive support from NetApp."
"We can go through and do an upgrade without worrying about any issues with the process"
"Performance is excellent. In fact, it's so fast that we're not really even taxing it all that much."
"NetApp is like a one-point central management. For example, one can put everything on the right version and control the whole environment from one software solution."
"With the storage efficiency from a NetApp AFF installation, users can manage substantial data running on all-flash, and the features such as compaction and compression provide storage efficiency guarantees in an all-flash environment."
"MetroCluster provides business continuity and is a critical part of our contingency setup."
"Their dedupe functionality is probably the best in the industry. We also find their support model to be good. When we purchase something, we have a very good understanding of how long that product will be supported by them. That helps."
"I love the SnapMirror and autonomous ransomware protection features."
"I love the SnapMirror and autonomous ransomware protection features."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."
"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"It is on the expensive side."
"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."
"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 had a lot of issues with two-factor authentication using, for example, Okta."
"Offering the ability to actively write data on a single volume spanning multiple clusters is significant."
"I would like them to roll in global monitoring instead of having to buy another product for it."
"It would be great if they had a single pane of glass or a single dashboard where all the NetApp ecosystem storages could be viewed and monitored simply. That would help my Operations."
"I would like to improve the ransomware aspect. We get a lot of false positives, and there are no details of what is happening. This seems to be already fixed in the new version."
"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."
"It can get a little expensive if you need to add more disks. The cost is a pain point for us, especially in terms of expansion."
"I would like to see more in terms of replication between storage classes. They provide different lines of storage. They have a lower class. They have a capacity class. They have their enterprise class. Currently, we have interoperability at the same plane with ONTAP, but we would like to see some more mix-and-match features."
"I'm handling pre-sales and post-sales. From a partner's point of view, the tools that I'm using to create the quote or do the sizing are very slow. The tools, such as hardware universe, fusion.netapp.com, and partnerhub.netapp.com, operate very slowly. These tools should be more efficient as they enter a hung state repeatedly."
"From a partner's point of view, the tools that I'm using to create the quote or do the sizing are very slow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."
"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."
"The product is expensive."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"From an application standpoint, we have seen a lot of return investment on the speeds and responsiveness of the actual storage."
"One of the reasons we like this solution is that all of the features are included with the one license."
"It depends on how you look at things, but they are in a higher price range."
"It's expensive. it's in the hundreds of thousands. It's beneficial, but at times, I feel compared to other vendors, we are paying a premium for the licensing that other vendors include."
"We would like it to be free."
"The price of the upgrading of the solution is high. I could buy a whole unit of All Flash FAS 300 with a shelf for around $285,000. Yet if I want to add one additional shelf, it'll cost me $275,000. So they want you to upgrade by replacing it. It's cheaper to buy a whole new unit than to just scale out. The upside is they last. AFF lasts us three or four years. So that's a good investment."
"Other vendors may come in at a cheaper price point, but you will pay in the end with management costs and downtime."
"NetApp AFF's pricing is competitive. It is not expensive or cheap. The tool's pricing is based on configurations and can cost around 150-160 dollars for 70 TB of storage."
"It is pretty good. It is definitely cheaper than Dell EMC. It is cheaper than Pure. It is cheaper than VAST. It is definitely cheaper than HPE. The only one that is on par with NetApp's pricing for enterprise customers is IBM."
"It's more expensive than other storage vendors such as Dell, Pure Storage, HPE, Lenovo, etc. It provides the value, but some of the customers don't look at the value. They first look at the cost. It should be reduced by 20% to 30%."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.
883,546 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user186357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect with 51-200 employees
Jan 28, 2015
NetApp vs. XtremIO
Is there another storage platform as feature rich as NetApp FAS? I think it is fair to say that NetApp FAS running Clustered Data ONTAP is a very feature rich platform – the move to the clustered version of ONTAP has brought many next-generation features including Scale-out and Non-disruptive…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
22%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise242
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
Well, Is one thing NetApp Storage has vs other brand is the mix of protocol CIFS with NFS booth working together in t...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended c...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matt...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp ASA?
I am not much aware of the pricing of NetApp ASA, but I estimate a NetApp ASA system could cost several hundreds of t...
What needs improvement with NetApp ASA?
The areas of NetApp ASA that could be improved include features such as the active sync feature that allows a custome...
What is your primary use case for NetApp ASA?
The most common use cases for NetApp ASA are VMware infrastructures and Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization, and in gene...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X, Pure FlashArray X NVMe
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp AFF vs. NetApp ASA and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
883,546 professionals have used our research since 2012.