NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe comparison

NetApp and Pure Storage are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. NetApp is ranked #26 with an average rating of 9.0, while Pure Storage is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.8. NetApp holds a 0.7% mindshare in AFS, compared to Pure Storage’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Pure Storage users who would recommend it.

NetApp EF-Series All Flash ...

Read 39 NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays reviews

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670 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Read 36 Pure FlashArray X NVMe reviews

1,736 Views
1,406 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NetApp EF-Series All Flash ...

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and Pure FlashArray X NVMe are top-tier storage solutions. Pure FlashArray X NVMe stands out for its superior features, making it worth the cost.

Features: NetApp EF-Series offers strong performance with low latency and high IOPS. Pure FlashArray X NVMe has enhanced NVMe support, advanced data protection features, and better overall NVMe capabilities.

Room for Improvement: NetApp EF-Series could benefit from better integration options, management tools, and improved scalability. Pure FlashArray X NVMe would be better with improved scalability, firmware stability, and enhanced integration options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetApp EF-Series deployment is quick and straightforward with a slight learning curve, and customer service is responsive but can be enhanced. Pure FlashArray X NVMe is highly rated for its swift deployment and excellent customer support, exceeding user expectations.

Pricing and ROI: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays offer competitive pricing with a strong ROI, appealing to budget-conscious buyers. Pure FlashArray X NVMe, while more expensive, delivers a compelling ROI due to its advanced features and performance benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe

July 2025

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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 EF-Series All Flash ...

Ranking in All-Flash Storage

26th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Ranking in All-Flash Storage

14th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Tayo Olubanke

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.

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Jaehoon Oh

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This storage solution is both stable and scalable, and it works for our needs."

"The speed is the most valuable feature."

"Its performance is most valuable. This solution is much faster than other as well as older storage solutions. The performance of the system is very good. We are getting 50 times better experience than the older storages. We are using AFF 300. It also has native cloud integration and most of the features."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the performance of the database access."

"One of the most valuable features is the overall performance it provides. You're able to throw a pile of IOPS at it and it will handle that without much issue."

"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."

"The solution allows us to segregate one storage unit from another."

"The benefits are better up-time, better response time."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pros

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."

"I appreciate the performance."

"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."

"I use the tool for Oracle databases, Oracle virtual machines, and Oracle Linux databases. I'm on the storage side, not a database administrator."

"The solution is scalable."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

Cons

"It needs a better management tool."

"This solution has limited storage."

"The solution's technical support is not as good as it is supposed to be since you have to push them to get support."

"We have used IBM previously. We found that the storage from IBM was poor and we chose NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays because it can scale very easily."

"The management interface, while very reliable, it seems a little old now and could maybe use a little modernization."

"Its pricing should be better. Its price is competitive, but they need to improve the pricing. They have different licensing models, which they need to improve. My expectation was cloud integration, which they have, but it is a different license. Therefore, people cannot enjoy it. If I want to use it, I need to pay extra. There is a cost involved for everything, but it should reach everyone. It is similar to having a Rolls-Royce, but you need to pay extra for the key. If you want the key, you need to pay."

"They could improve overall scalability through performance. Denser capacity, which is doable, it is what the competition is doing."

"There could be an improvement when it comes to SLA support, it could be faster."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays cons

"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."

"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."

"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."

"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."

"The software layer has to improve."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"he price point that we're getting is very competitive in the market. Since we are buying in such a large quantity, they gave us a huge discount."

"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 cost of our license is approximately $200,000 over three years for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. There can be additional costs for storage. For example, if you want to have eight terabytes."

"One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to renew the license."

"They provide licenses upon purchase, so there's no need for additional licenses. Regarding additional expenses apart from the standard licensing fees, such as for support or maintenance, there aren't any. Updates take around twenty to thirty minutes, including rebooting the systems, and we haven't faced any problems with the NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. We utilize various other storages like Fujitsu, IBM, and Dalian SIP, but the NetApp EF-Series stands out as we've had no issues throughout the entire year of usage."

"It's a lot cheaper than what the other vendors have for the same type of environment. It saves us money."

"It's a way to get relatively low-cost, very high-performance, low-latency block storage as a point solution."

"This solution is not available to many users because the cost is very expensive."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pricing and cost advice

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"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."

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

"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."

"The product is expensive."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Performing Arts

10%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market.

See all answers

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 renew the license.

See all answers

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 support to be top-notch because it is an area that has changed a lot in the product....

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

See all answers

Comparisons

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Dell Unity XT vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

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Dell XtremIO vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 11% of the time

NetApp ASA vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 25% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

August 2025

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays report

Download NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays product report

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

August 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Also Known As

NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

Overview

The NetApp EF560 all-flash array is an all-SSD storage system for applications that demand extremely high levels of performance and reliability. Requiring just 2U of rack space, the EF560 all-flash array combines extreme IOPS, microsecond response times, and up to 12GBps of bandwidth with leading, enterprise-proven availability features.

NetApp

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.

Pure Storage

Sample Customers

RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe

July 2025

Free Report: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe

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