We performed a comparison between NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and SolidFire based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The solution is easy to scale. I'm running two environments right now, so I need to scale. I'm running a part technology. I've got an A-side and a B-side."
"They are quite responsive and our local team was pretty good."
"The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is the all-flash storage performance, low latency, and efficiency of their de-duplication technology. Additionally, the ease of use is good compared to other storage systems. The features in data protection, snapshotting, and replication between data centers and sites are superior to other solutions."
"The management is simple in Pure Storage FlashArray."
"With Pure Storage, we don't see any latency or IOPS. It has been a very seamless integration."
"As soon as we introduced our first Pure Storage FlashArray, the first benefit was at least twice the performance increase. Our production databases simply ran twice as fast with no other change."
"It gives us capacity planning."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the support."
"It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The management of it is very simple. that is the most valuable feature."
"The benefits are better up-time, better response time."
"We use it for our VDI environment, and have not had any complaints with it."
"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 management software is very good."
"The speed is the most valuable feature."
"Compared to Dell Unity XT, what I see as an advantage in NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is the fact that it is more scalable...The performance of the product is good."
"The most valuable feature is the performance, as well as how you manage performance on the system."
"The system efficiency is excellent overall."
"The quality of service for minimum iOS, to maximum iOS in a multi-terminal environment is very powerful. The SQL service feature is the best part of SolidFire."
"SolidFire provides seamless performance across your storage system when you need to scale up. Other storage systems do not do that."
"SolidFire is one of the products that does have great APIs right out-of-the-box. It works great. The tools and the other stuff seem to work a little better right out-of-the-box than the ONTAP stuff does, C-Mode."
"Feature-wise, it is a good solution allowing users to monitor and simplify their networks. The solution also provides its users with flexibility by enabling them to utilize its extensions."
"It's got full API functionality and the performance is pretty steady."
"I would say in terms of architecture and in terms of functionality, the product is quite good."
"I would like to see more detailed reporting on the data. However, it would be nice to know what are the exact VMs usage after deduplication and/or what that VMs actual latency and bandwidth is, outside of VMware."
"The time-to-market could be better at times, but I think that's true for all vendors of hardware."
"It was not proactive communication."
"I would like to migrate to the cloud in the future and know how that would actually work with this product."
"I would like to see a Nagios monitoring plugin which watches the health and performance of the system. The only one available just checks volume capacity."
"The integration capabilities could be improved."
"In the next release of this solution, we would like to see automated copy data management for SQL Server."
"This product has only two active controllers, whereas other solutions can have more. This is something that needs to improve."
"They could improve overall scalability through performance. Denser capacity, which is doable, it is what the competition is doing."
"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."
"There could be an improvement when it comes to SLA support, it could be faster."
"This solution does not have any compression or deduplication."
"The initial setup phase of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is not straightforward and needs improvement."
"The dashboard could be simplified."
"The price of the All Flash solution is very high."
"Better integration with other brands is important so we would like to see it easier to integrate."
"Though it is a stable solution, its users may face some security issues at times...The security provided by the solution is one area that can be improved."
"For example, the ease of use with the reporting. Right now it's not impossible, but you have to know Sequel. It's a little time consuming to get those customized reports in there."
"A little better segregation of the multi-tenancy. Right now, it's just VLAN-specific, that's all you can do."
"I would like to see integration with the cloud, number one. Being able to spin SolidFire in the cloud."
"It would be good to provide administrative access at the root level to be able to do things with the system, if need be."
"SolidFire should start from two nodes instead of the four nodes. That's the only thing. In a lot of solutions, we have to use four nodes, that's the better thing. But as a starting point, two is better. That's why their starting point is expensive."
"They could make the mNode more user-friendly. Now you need to configure and add nodes by CLI and it’s not really easy to manage. If they created a web interface to do the management of the mNode, that would be great!."
"The scalability of HCI or SolidFire as such isn't a concern, but when you compare it to PowerMax or NetApp AFF series devices, scalability is a concern because it's only the drives that are connected to the nodes. We don't have any shelf connectivity."
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NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is ranked 23rd in All-Flash Storage with 38 reviews while SolidFire is ranked 19th in All-Flash Storage with 33 reviews. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is rated 8.6, while SolidFire is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays writes "A storage solution that offers great stability, resilience, and support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolidFire writes "A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance". NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is most compared with NetApp AFF, Dell PowerStore, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Huawei OceanStor Dorado and HPE Primera, whereas SolidFire is most compared with NetApp AFF, Dell PowerStore and VMware vSAN. See our NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. SolidFire report.
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