We performed a comparison between NetApp AFF and VMware vSAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Pure Storage, NetApp and others in All-Flash Storage."Support has been helpful."
"The scalability is good."
"The management is simple in Pure Storage FlashArray."
"I like the speed, and I like the API and how programmable it is."
"The tool is simple and easy to use. It has neat features like protection from device removal. Moreover, you can undo the deletes. The solution is easy to work with and not as complicated as CAC"
"The speed is one of the most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray."
"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."
"NVMe data storage platform that's easy to set up and easy to use. It's stable, with a lower response time, and quick technical support."
"I actually did major projects where we used NetApp storage for some government agencies, and we were able to keep the storage where the government or the customer is able to own the storage while using AWS as their computing. That part was helpful to the customer."
"The NVMe flash cache is the most useful feature. It lowers transactional speed even more."
"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 performance is outstanding when it's all Flash. That's the biggest bang for the buck that we get."
"Supports file formatting, the main protocols, and the hot swapping of disks and features."
"In terms of the footprint, it is far more efficient. It has smaller, higher-capacity drives than our older unit. In terms of space, power, and cooling, it has simplified things."
"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."
"It is a stable solution."
"When we do to do more scaled load testing, we can run more dense workloads and still have the same results across all specific nodes"
"Its ease of use is most valuable. It is easy to configure, and there is a unified interface, which makes things slightly easier."
"Very easy to implement in any existing environment."
"The technical support is good."
"One of the valuable features of vSAN is it has a universal type of technology that allows you to deploy it on any server or hardware. Competitors, such as Nutanix, provides the AOS and can be deployed only on certified hardware. For vSAN, it does not require any kind of certified hardware."
"We had very good access to technical support."
"It is very well known in the industry, and there are a lot of technical resources around it. This is a big thing for me because, at the end of the day, when you implement it, you need to support it."
"Allows us to implement more quickly, and to ease the maintenance."
"The backend of this solution utilizes an Active/Passive architecture, rather than an Active/Active architecture, which is a disadvantage, when compared to some of its competitors. Its storage capacity should be expanded in the next release."
"Areas for improvement would be the financial operations. In the next release, I would like to see a NAS protocol included."
"It is a bit expensive."
"Beyond a certain amount of petabytes, you have to have a separate system. Basically, it's not infinitely scalable."
"Self-backup is the only feature lacking in this solution."
"This product has only two active controllers, whereas other solutions can have more. This is something that needs to improve."
"There was some complexity in the initial setup."
"When we were doing some tests, we found that there was an I/O freeze when they were switching the controller."
"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."
"After the three-year prepay, the extended warranty is a little expensive."
"You have a limit in terms of how much you can expand storage. It sounds like a lot. However, over the years, as you grow, it may be smaller than you think."
"NetApp should offer more training so everyone can learn about the products. Other vendors have a lot of training options. It would be great if NetApp would highlight how to use the features more so that every admin or person can gain more knowledge about this technology."
"It used to give us the volume where LANs should be placed when we created a LAN in the older version. However, in the newer version of ONTAP, it does not give where to place the LAN in the volume. So, that liberty has been taken away. If that was there again, it would be very good."
"This is an expensive solution that could be cheaper."
"Some of the graphical user interface changes in the later versions of NetApp have not been as good as the older ones, like in the 9.5 era."
"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."
"While I like the replication and compression features, there is a problem with them running too slowly."
"It could have some automation. We haven't involved ourselves in a lot of automation around the vSAN environment capabilities. We're still running it using a very traditional setup. So, there could be some plugins to automate it using third-party environments, such as Jenkins."
"When designing the implementation for vSAN, I have noticed that it requires a minimum of six nodes, and this creates a problem when it comes to maintenance. If, out of the six nodes, I put one node in maintenance mode, then vSAN does not create other VM components."
"Lacks an integrated backup solution."
"We would like to see additional backup and recovery options added. In particular, integration with popular applications like databases."
"It would be ideal if the solution offered some intelligent monitoring."
"The pricing could be better when it comes to renewing the licenses."
"I have used the VMware Replication but I can't get it to work properly. The process should be simplified."
NetApp AFF is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 30 reviews while VMware vSAN is ranked 2nd in HCI with 60 reviews. NetApp AFF is rated 9.0, while VMware vSAN is rated 8.2. 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 VMware vSAN writes "Gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources". NetApp AFF is most compared with Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Dell Unity XT, Dell PowerStore, HPE Nimble Storage and VAST Data, whereas VMware vSAN is most compared with VxRail, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE SimpliVity and HPE Hyper Converged.
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.
