NetApp AFF vs Pure Storage FlashArray comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Sep 5, 2022

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.

  • Ease of Deployment: Users of both NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) and Pure Storage FlashArray report straightforward and simple setup and deployment, though some NetApp AFF users mention mild complexity. Pure Storage FlashArray users report being impressed with its ease of deployment.
  • Features: Users of both products are happy with their flexibility, stability, and scalability.

    NetApp AFF users say it has robust features and unique functionality and that its speed is impressive. Some users mention, however, that the GUI could be better and that it could offer more disk sizes like competitors.

    Pure Storage FlashArray users like its user-friendly dashboard and its stability, but mention that its file functionality and replication could be better.
  • Pricing: Users of both products feel they are pricey but worthwhile for what you get. Some Pure Storage users report some dissatisfaction with the high pricing structure.
  • ROI: Users of both products report seeing an ROI.
  • Service and Support: Users of both products report high satisfaction with the level of response and support they receive. NetApp AFF users mention the clear documentation, while Pure Storage FlashArray users mention support as being “amazing.”

Comparison Results: Pure Storage FlashArray has a slight edge in this comparison because users were happier with its ease of deployment and features.

To learn more, read our detailed NetApp AFF vs. Pure Storage FlashArray Report (Updated: September 2023).
735,432 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The solution is scalable.""The solution is very straightforward to set up.""Technical support has been helpful and responsive.""FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle.""It has good, reliable, fast storage.""The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone.""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.""Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Pros →

"The performance is outstanding when it's all Flash. That's the biggest bang for the buck that we get.""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.""This solution helps accelerate demanding enterprise applications. VMware workloads, the database, and Oracle Solaris are hosted on AFF, which means that our primary priority workloads are on AFF and that the secondary ones are on FAS. That includes the SAN national cloud.""The speed is great. That's probably number one in terms of features we appreciate.""NetApp AFF has helped to simplify our clients' infrastructure while still getting very high performance for their business-critical applications. One of our customers uses the vSAN environment in the release, then they use NFS for their VMware VCF environment and TKG environment. In this case, when they move to NetApp for the TKG and the VM infrastructures, they use AFF for block, CIFS, and NFS. It provides a single storage with NFS, block, and CIFS with deduplication, team provisioning, and compression. Everything is in there, which makes it very good to use.""It also helps to accelerate databases in our environment. First of all, there is the reliability of things staying online and the small response time as well, from the MetroCluster, for all of the data that we're serving; and the applications are talking to the MetroCluster. It provides a very fast response time.""The most valuable feature of the solution is data protection and snapshot technology for backup.""The speed of data retrieval is the most valuable feature. We mostly use it for our SAP database and we are getting good IO from the hard drive."

More NetApp AFF Pros →

"I like FlashArray's ActiveCluster as well as its snapshot and cloning capabilities.""Processes that used to take 40 minutes to two hours can be completed in five minutes.""On a scale of one to ten, where ten is the most comfortable pricing, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.""The solution offers amazing performance.""The solution is very reliable.""Data deduplication is one feature I found to be the most valuable in the tool...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.""This is the best all-flash storage array on the market.""Simplicity and reliability are the most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray."

More Pure Storage FlashArray Pros →

Cons
"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly.""They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage.""Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe.""We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI.""It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking.""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.""Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient.""You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Cons →

"After the three-year prepay, the extended warranty is a little expensive.""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.""The user interface should be more user-friendly, and the configuration could be more accessible.""The initial setup has a lot more steps in it than are probably necessary for a base deployment, unlike other vendors where it's more straightforward. It could be a little bit more streamlined.""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.""NetApp AFF needs to focus more on block storage. It has to focus on high-end, performance-driven applications.""Its technical support could be better.""When it comes to the connectivity on the back end, where the hardware is concerned—the cabling and the like—it could also be simplified to ease the communication between the nodes and between the other components of the infrastructure. I still find that a little bit complicated."

More NetApp AFF Cons →

"There was some complexity in the initial setup.""Pure Storage FlashArray could improve in the area of cryptographic information in the consoles. The user-friendliness could improve. The Pure Storage FlashArray team should come and log into the system with their maintenance credentials and then pull out the information as evidence of cryptography.""In the configuration, which we brought in or tested it in, it has a very limited config as far as the array goes. That said, it still did more than our anticipation.""We would like to be able to connect to data tape for backup, specifically to the LTO backups.""It would be good to have metrics of the box's performance so we can see what it delivers, but currently, I can't see what it's actually doing.""The price should be lower.""The price of Pure Storage FlashArray could be better.""Its price could be cheaper. It is not the cheapest one out there, but I'm not directly involved in the figures and negotiations."

More Pure Storage FlashArray Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "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 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."
  • More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The licensing and pricing are fine. As a reseller for the product, we need to make the differentiation in the minds of the customer. They are not just buying some tool that does only one thing, e.g., showing a LAN for a customer. The pricing is fair for what it is."
  • "In addition to simplifying the management across a mix of solutions, AFF simplifies the cost. That was one of the main reasons we purchased AFF."
  • "NetApp AFF is an expensive product, although not compared to other vendors."
  • "The pricing is pretty reasonable for what we get. But if you have to buy any more disk space, it can be quite expensive."
  • "The list price of AFF is too expensive... they need to be careful with the pricing of the new NVMe disks. They are way too expensive."
  • "I looked at other vendors for other potential projects and thought NetApp's pricing was very competitive."
  • "There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost. The cost is very high compared to other devices."
  • "The only area where the product has room for improvement is the cost."
  • More NetApp AFF Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "When we bought the unit, we bought per capacity. So, the licensing is per capacity, and the only thing that we have to buy every year or every three years is maintenance. Included in that maintenance is the upgrade of the controllers every three years at no cost to us."
  • "We consume it as a service, and that's actually something we really like, or at least I really like from the technical perspective. That's because it means there is no hassle when we need to upgrade arrays to add capacity. We just interact directly with technical counterparts, and we say, "Hey, we're filling up," and they say, "All right, here's another data pack." They ship it in, and we install it. So, the as-a-service model has worked very well. Given the outstanding data reduction rates, it has improved our profitability because we're selling allocated volumes as part of the cloud service or recovering those costs from our tenants. It is very efficient, but that has offset the premium price. It started out that way, but over time, as we've added capacity, the price per gig has gone down a lot because we have a lot of it."
  • "There are no fees for licensing. The hardware is paid for only once."
  • "I think that the pricing is less expensive compared to other standard products in the market today. Even the support contract and maintenance services cost less when compared to market-leading products like EMC."
  • "You can pay extra for Evergreen support, which gives you free upgrades when new features are introduced."
  • "The best features come included without any additional cost."
  • "We purchased a license to use this solution and we pay for the storage ourselves."
  • "The price of the solution is not expensive."
  • More Pure Storage FlashArray Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues.
    Top Answer:Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products.
    Top Answer:We need to get more information about the performance fine-tuning that we are doing. Many options to check performance… more »
    Top Answer:Well, Is one thing NetApp Storage has vs other brand is the mix of protocol CIFS with NFS booth working together in the… more »
    Top Answer:This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended cost… more »
    Top Answer:The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matters… more »
    Top Answer:Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure… more »
    Top Answer:Data deduplication is one feature I found to be the most valuable in the tool...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a… more »
    Top Answer:FlashArray is a premium solution, having all-inclusive licensing including future functionalities, and being end/to/end… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
    NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
    Learn More
    Overview

    Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

    NetApp AFF A-series systems are cloud-connected, flash storage designed to meet and exceed the performance requirements of business-critical applications and enterprise workloads. Powered by NetApp ONTAP data management software, AFF systems deliver industry-leading performance, superior flexibility, and best-in-class data services and cloud integration to accelerate, manage, and protect your business-critical data in the hybrid cloud.

    These systems support end-to-end NVMe technologies to deliver the industry’s lowest latency for an enterprise all-flash array, making them the superior choice for running the most demanding business-critical workloads and AI/ML applications.

    NetApp AFF is a robust, scale-out platform ideal for virtualized environments and can be deployed as an independent system or a high-performance tier in a NetApp ONTAP cluster configuration.

    NetApp AFF Benefits

    The AFF systems yield many benefits:

    • Reduce Cost:  Change the economics of your data center with flash - you'll consume 11 times less electricity, require 11 times less rack space, and spend 67 percent less on support compared to a data center using HDDs.
    • Increase Performance: AFF A-Series systems deliver industry-leading performance proven by SPC-1 and SPEC SFS industry benchmarks, making them ideal for demanding, highly transactional applications such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, MongoDB databases, VDI, and server virtualization.
    • Simplify Operations on premises or in the cloud: Eliminate fragmented and redundant toolsets and combine visibility and manageability of storage instances with data services in a unified control plane across the hybrid cloud.
    • Secure your data: automatically protect your data from ransomware attacks and avoid paying ransoms, meet compliance requirements with ease, and create a Zero-Trust perimeter around your organizations data on premises or in the cloud.

    NetApp AFF Features

    Many critical features play a role in making AFF systems the optimal flash storage choice:

    • Take advantage of faster host connectivity with NVMe/FC and NVMe/TCP support.
    • NetApp SnapMirror replication software reduces overall system costs by replicating to any type of FAS or AFF system, whether it is all-flash, hybrid, or HDD, on premises or in the cloud.
    • Automatically balance and optimize your production all-flash capacity with efficient cloud storage.
    • Built-in, app-integrated backup.
    • Automatic ransomware protection, multifactor admin access, secure multitenant shared storage, and in-flight and at-rest encryption.
    • Unified architecture which supports file, block, and object storage
    • Scale out to 24 nodes, 367PB of effective capacity, and 4 million IOPS non-disruptively.

    Reviews from Real Users

    NetApp AFF stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its high performance and simplicity. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

    PeerSpot user and Storage Administrator, Daniel Rúnar Friðþjófsson, comments “AFF has helped to simplify our infrastructure, while still getting very high performance for our business-critical applications. Having all these things working well on one solution is really good. We run this as the backbone for both Hyper-V and VMware as well as an archive location for Rubrik. So, it is great having one solution that can do it all.

    Because of the ease of it all, you have a highly tunable, high-performance storage system that alleviates a lot of problems. With its ease of management, you can quickly get your work done and go onto the next thing on your list.”

    Additionally, Mohan Reddy, Sr. Technology Architect at a Pharma/Biotech company comments on how “NetApp's ONTAP data management software has also made tasks simpler for us. There's no question about that. It has helped us run operations very quickly, saving us a lot of time. Before ONTAP, we used to spend a long time doing regular operations, but with the latest version of the tool, our day-to-day operations are much quicker and easier.”

    Pure Storage FlashArray is the world’s first enterprise-class storage array that runs exclusively on the nonvolatile memory express (NVMe) protocol for memory access and storage. It represents a totally state-of-the-art type of storage technology. It offers users shared accelerated storage that delivers cutting-edge features in the realms of performance, simplicity, and consolidation. Pure Storage is fresh and modern today and will be for the next decade. Without forklift upgrades or planned downtime, Pure Storage takes the work out of storage ownership and delivers unprecedented customer satisfaction.

    Pure Storage FlashArray is built with simplicity and reliability in mind. The solution can be implemented and optimized in hours, as opposed to other similar solutions that can take days. It has no moving parts, which removes areas where it could potentially be vulnerable to suffering errors. It is highly stable and gives users the ability to manage system shutdowns in a way that  prevents data loss.

    Benefits of Pure Storage FlashArray

    Some of the benefits of using Pure Storage FlashArray include:

    • A much higher level of speed than similar pieces of technology. Pure Storage FlashArray maximizes the speed at which data can be transferred while at the same time minimizing system latencies that might slow the transfer down. Additionally, it offers users quick memory read and data access speeds.

    • A higher bang for your buck in terms of the storage capabilities you get for the money you pay. They are smaller in size than more standard storage technologies, but they offer flash memory, which enables users to store larger amounts of data than the current standard.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Pure Storage FlashArray is a highly effective piece of storage technology which stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its overall robustness and the value that it offers by way of its reliability and ease of use. It provides users with many valuable features that allow them to maximize what they can do with this solution. Pure Storage FlashArray’s reliability and ease of use make it a highly valuable solution. 

    PeerSpot user Prabakaran K., a technical consultant at Injazat Data Systems, notes the robustness of this solution when he writes, "FlashArray has many valuable features. It's very user-friendly and it has high availability, so there is comparatively less downtime. During maintenance, there is no shutdown procedure, so you can directly power off the Array and manage the shutdown process without any data loss, which is a unique feature. Managing replication and data migration is also very easy."

    PeerSpot user Jason D., a cloud solutions architect at a tech services company, notes three features that make this solution valuable when he writes, "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."

    Offer
    Learn more about Pure FlashArray X NVMe
    Learn more about NetApp AFF
    Learn more about Pure Storage FlashArray
    Sample Customers
    Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
    DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
    Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company24%
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Comms Service Provider18%
    Manufacturing Company12%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company16%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Energy/Utilities Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization60%
    Computer Software Company8%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Financial Services Firm4%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Healthcare Company12%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Computer Software Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization36%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business32%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise36%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business24%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise61%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business12%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise75%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business10%
    Midsize Enterprise65%
    Large Enterprise25%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business16%
    Midsize Enterprise44%
    Large Enterprise40%
    Buyer's Guide
    NetApp AFF vs. Pure Storage FlashArray
    September 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp AFF vs. Pure Storage FlashArray and other solutions. Updated: September 2023.
    735,432 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    NetApp AFF is ranked 4th in All-Flash Storage with 28 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 39 reviews. NetApp AFF is rated 9.0, while Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of NetApp AFF writes "Provides us with quick options when restoring things for customers". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pure Storage FlashArray writes "User-friendly, fast performance, good data compression and deduplication capabilities". NetApp AFF is most compared with Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Dell Unity XT, Dell PowerStore, HPE Nimble Storage and IBM FlashSystem, 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.

    We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.