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NetApp E-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 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

NetApp E-Series
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of NetApp E-Series is 2.9%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 4.2%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Pure FlashArray X NVMe4.2%
NetApp E-Series2.9%
Other92.9%
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
 

Featured Reviews

MB
IT-Techniker at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Have struggled with timely expert support and faced communication challenges during critical maintenance tasks
As an AZ3 technician with experience in that direction, when I call them, I do not call the first-level support as it is something I do not need. I call them because I am not able to resolve that mistake or when the behavior of the machine is not normal. If you need an auto support message from the customer machine, you can get them from the first level, but most of the time, they do not know what an auto support message is, and everything stops there. You have a few of them when you call, and when we are replacing something in NetApp E-Series. StorageGRID is different, but with NetApp E-Series, you need to grab information from the node that is actually down; in most cases, the node is not in loader. It is entirely gone. You can try to reseat it, maybe boot it up, but in most cases, when it is down, it stays down. You call support for that, and that is when you lose two or three hours.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Customers go for the E Series if they need backup storage because it is cheap."
"The Snapshot feature is actually widely used; it is a feature that only NetApp E-Series has and it is quite good."
"My customers are satisfied with the performance."
"If we select the best use case for NetApp E-Series based on its intended purpose, I would rate it a ten."
"The overall experience has been positive."
"The product is easy to use."
"The solution is scalable."
"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."
"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."
"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"The best features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe include the volume snapshot capabilities, which allow us to save most of the storage space by volume snapshots periodically."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"I appreciate the performance."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
 

Cons

"With NetApp E-Series, when we are running active-active NAS4, sometimes due to either an issue or a bug, we experience failures. At least twice yearly, we have seen this issue. When it occurs, we lose critical systems such as MQ."
"Though the performance is there, if NetApp wants to be competitive with the others, it must improve their business continuity."
"NetApp should add more production lines to the E series so we can make flexible solutions more easily."
"Regarding error handling in NetApp E-Series, because it is a cost-effective but not an intelligent storage solution, the error handling is not sufficient."
"Getting through first level to second level takes two hours minimum."
"The solution must provide more training courses."
"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."
"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is reasonable for NetApp E-Series."
"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 licensing is on a yearly basis."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."
"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"The product is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
20%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

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

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with NetApp E-Series?
Regarding scalability, I think there is no problem. While there is always room for improvement in any product, to my knowledge, NetApp is a visionary company that enhances product features consiste...
What is your primary use case for NetApp E-Series?
We sell NetApp E-Series as engineered machines like FlexPod, which is used where high throughput and native storage performance are needed without data management software, such as in backup and ar...
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 Evergreen monthly payment. I do not know the exact device price, but I think the ...
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 be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, b...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp E-Series vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.