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