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NetApp AFF vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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
218
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp AFF
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
314
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (2nd)
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 is 8.3%, down from 9.3% 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 (%)
NetApp AFF8.3%
Everpure FlashArray7.5%
NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays1.2%
Other83.0%
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.
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.
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

"Pure Storage FlashArray offers numerous valuable features, such as low latency and high throughput."
"One could tell, the minute we switched to this program, everything ran a lot faster."
"Like I tell everybody else that I deal with, if you want to focus your time on doing more valuable things for your company, and you deal with storage on a day-to-day basis like I do, the best thing you can do is put Pure in your environment."
"All updates, upgrades, and hardware work are all performed on-line with no impact."
"After switching to Everpure FlashArray, we saw significant results, as whatever hardware we used before is now compressed to 80%, maximizing space utilization in a single system."
"It is simple, powerful, and a beautiful solution."
"My advice to others looking into using Everpure FlashArray is that it's a really good product, especially if your main purpose is to get high speed with more redundancy and reliability; then go for it."
"It's a great return on investment, based on the mission."
"All of its features, including its SnapMirror functionalities, make it really good for our environment."
"We use All Flash for block and file storage, and our impression of NetApp has a long history; it's been good to us in providing the support and giving us the right solutions when we need them."
"With All Flash, the benefit we have seen is the real estate in the data center has really shrunk by leaps and bounds."
"There are many reports accessing the applications. We receive them very quickly. We used to wait a long time for them. Now, you just need to wait a moment."
"We have had such a good experience with NetApp that our next logical step up from our previous device was just another NetApp."
"I like some basic features like Snapshot, FlexClone, and advanced features such as SnapMirror, and SnapVault. They also recently enhanced the market with Cloud Volumes ONTAP. I think that NetApp is a very good product."
"If you need a replacement part, they will provide it."
"The most valuable features of AFF are its speed and the responsive support from NetApp."
"It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"It's still worth purchasing as the support is good and also the performance is very good."
"Its performance is most valuable; this solution is much faster than other as well as older storage solutions, and we are getting 50 times better experience than the older storages."
"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."
"NetApp All Flash is a system that I recommend for a rapid storage solution."
"The benefits are better up-time, better response time."
"Some of the valuable features include MetroCluster switchover, in terms of disaster recovery, it is easy to use, and flexible."
 

Cons

"Part of our company works on Dell EMC because Pure Storage did not have synchronous applications when we were purchasing our products."
"We would like to see more development on their Copy Automation Tool (CAT) for Oracle, as well as better integration for our customers running Oracle VM."
"FlashArray's capacity for forecasting should be improved because it needs to be a bit more current. I think it's bundled with the deduplication and other compression factors. We need more user interfaces for forecasting in this software and more interfaces need to be integrated with this array management tool."
"Enhanced documentation and beginner-friendly guidelines would benefit users with less configuration experience."
"FlashArray could improve on the administrative side. For example, when you need to upgrade the boxes, we can't do that ourselves. We need to open a ticket with support and have them do that for us. You don't need to be on the call with them. We tell them we have a slot that we want to upgrade, and they send us an email when it's done."
"There's always an opportunity for new feature functionality."
"We would like to see better troubleshooting aspects. It helps us if we can find out where the problem is. Right now, it's difficult. Sometimes it's difficult to pinpoint the issue. If they had more visibility and more troubleshooting feature built into the tool that would really help."
"In the next release I would like to see integration into other third-party player providers like Google."
"We had an issue, which was a self inflicted outage. Unfortunately, that one actually took our entire environment down."
"NetApp could lower the price and offer a true cluster architecture. It's currently a 1.4 cluster, not a real 2.0 cluster."
"We installed NetSender to test it. I think it could be a good solution. It is very small now, but will probably become bigger in the next few months to years."
"Occasionally there are struggles getting to the right people but, once you do, they know what they're talking about."
"We have to work with technology that we can deploy ourselves, run where we decide, and not necessarily anywhere, and that can survive for long periods of time disconnected from a cloud. For us, that's probably been one of the bigger cybersecurity challenges: how do we maintain security, maintain updates, patches, profiles, policies, and all that stuff without subscribing to a service from your friendly neighbourhood cloud provider? This product does a better-than-average job of that."
"I would like for them to develop the ability to detach the fabric pool."
"Our initial setup involved a lot of development."
"It would be better if they just improved the performance of the system."
"It needs a better management tool."
"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."
"If anything else, I would like to see higher-capacity drives, as they come out; I have heard that 15 TB are out on a different NetApp series."
"Nonetheless, there are a couple of other things that NetApp hasn't done right."
"As far as the manageability, being able to port between the two and have to do less training in-house from a customer point of view, that would be the part to improve."
"I would like to shrink it more, if we can. The smaller, the better."
"The EF-Series is not the most scalable solution."
"I've observed an issue when creating a new storage solution with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pure Storage has not helped to reduce our HANA licensing costs."
"I would rate it a seven out of ten for pricing. It could be improved."
"Once you purchase Pure Storage FlashArray it is all-inclusive, you receive all the licenses needed."
"The price of Pure Storage FlashArray could always improve. They are still more expensive than some alternative offerings. Cost is always a concern and when there is a battle they tend to be more expensive."
"It's a good price point and it's a solid product for the price."
"We evaluated Oracle and Hitachi, but Pure Storage had the better pricing."
"My organization has a yearly license, but I believe that Pure Storage FlashArray has capacity-based licenses as well. I'm definitely happy with the pricing."
"Pure Storage is all-flash, so this sometimes tends to make it a bit more expensive in the beginning."
"Other vendors may come in at a cheaper price point, but you will pay in the end with management costs and downtime."
"It is relatively cheap compared to other vendors."
"Our total cost of ownership (TCO) has decreased by 40 percent."
"NetApp AFF is somewhat pricey. If they weren't as pricey, that would be a big deal for us."
"When we bought NetApp, it was very reasonably priced. When you factor in the time savings, it's highly cost-effective."
"Always consider whether you can afford the solution."
"All features are included in the license, whereas with an EMC solution, you have to pay separately for extra terabytes."
"The only area where the product has room for improvement is the cost."
"It's a way to get relatively low-cost, very high-performance, low-latency block storage as a point solution."
"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."
"Adding more capacity will increase the cost."
"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."
"The pricing is comparable with other competitors and similar in mid-range solutions, and for high range solutions, it would depend on our requirements or needs."
"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 pricing of the solution is expensive, considering the initial investment required...At the end of the product's life cycle, it could get cheaper, but the initial investment in NetApp makes it one of the most expensive solutions."
"NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is an expensive product."
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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
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
6%
Construction Company
14%
Performing Arts
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business66
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise152
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise242
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 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 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
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp AFF vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.