NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs SolidFire comparison

Cancel
You must select at least 2 products to compare!
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

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.
To learn more, read our detailed NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. SolidFire Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"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."

More Pure Storage FlashArray Pros →

"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."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Pros →

"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."

More SolidFire Pros →

Cons
"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."

More Pure Storage FlashArray Cons →

"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."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Cons →

"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."

More SolidFire Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "We feel that the pricing is fair and the licensing process was easy for both."
  • "There is always room for negotiation."
  • "The price was slightly higher than others, but competitive, if you consider all the other features that you get from it."
  • "It is a more expensive solution, but it is worth it. You are getting what you paid for."
  • "For pricing, you have to take into account their performance on deduplication and compression in a $/GB comparison."
  • "We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO)."
  • "It is a cheaper solution."
  • "Pure Storage is all-flash, so this sometimes tends to make it a bit more expensive in the beginning."
  • More Pure Storage FlashArray Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It's a lot cheaper than what the other vendors have for the same type of environment. It saves us money."
  • "Cheaper pricing is always good. NetApp has been doing everything the right way. They've been figuring out things really well, going in the right direction."
  • "It's a way to get relatively low-cost, very high-performance, low-latency block storage as a point solution."
  • "The price point for EF is considerably lower than the alternatives."
  • "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."
  • "The pricing of this solution is competitive with other vendors here in Egypt."
  • "The pricing is comparable with other competitors and similar in mid-range solutions, and for high range solutions, it would depend on our requirements or needs."
  • "Adding more capacity will increase the cost."
  • More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "We would probably use SolidFire more, except we're getting more bang for our buck with our purchases of ONTAP right now, and the deal we made with NetApp, so it's more of just a cost decision"
  • "The price of this solution is more expensive than others."
  • "Based on what I heard from other people, its price was on the higher side."
  • "On a scale where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the solution between three and four. It is an expensive solution."
  • "It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for what you get."
  • More SolidFire Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure… more »
    Top Answer:We consume less physical storage because of the solution’s deduplication and compression.
    Top Answer:We have customers who use a three-year or five-year license. We also have customers who use Evergreen.
    Top Answer:Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market.
    Top Answer:If one is cheap and ten is expensive, then I'd rate the pricing a three.
    Top Answer:The only major drawback is the replication between EF-Series units. Both the EF-series and NetApp are marketing this… more »
    Top Answer:The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance… more »
    Top Answer:It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for… more »
    Top Answer:There is room for improvement with a focus on creating a centralized storage system, functioning similar to AWS. This… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series
    Learn More
    Overview

    Pure Storage FlashArray is the world’s first enterprise-class storage array that runs exclusively on the nonvolatile memory express (NVMe) protocol for memory access and storage. It represents a totally state-of-the-art type of storage technology. It offers users shared accelerated storage that delivers cutting-edge features in the realms of performance, simplicity, and consolidation. Pure Storage is fresh and modern today and will be for the next decade. Without forklift upgrades or planned downtime, Pure Storage takes the work out of storage ownership and delivers unprecedented customer satisfaction.

    Pure Storage FlashArray is built with simplicity and reliability in mind. The solution can be implemented and optimized in hours, as opposed to other similar solutions that can take days. It has no moving parts, which removes areas where it could potentially be vulnerable to suffering errors. It is highly stable and gives users the ability to manage system shutdowns in a way that  prevents data loss.

    Benefits of Pure Storage FlashArray

    Some of the benefits of using Pure Storage FlashArray include:

    • A much higher level of speed than similar pieces of technology. Pure Storage FlashArray maximizes the speed at which data can be transferred while at the same time minimizing system latencies that might slow the transfer down. Additionally, it offers users quick memory read and data access speeds.

    • A higher bang for your buck in terms of the storage capabilities you get for the money you pay. They are smaller in size than more standard storage technologies, but they offer flash memory, which enables users to store larger amounts of data than the current standard.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Pure Storage FlashArray is a highly effective piece of storage technology which stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its overall robustness and the value that it offers by way of its reliability and ease of use. It provides users with many valuable features that allow them to maximize what they can do with this solution. Pure Storage FlashArray’s reliability and ease of use make it a highly valuable solution. 

    PeerSpot user Prabakaran K., a technical consultant at Injazat Data Systems, notes the robustness of this solution when he writes, "FlashArray has many valuable features. It's very user-friendly and it has high availability, so there is comparatively less downtime. During maintenance, there is no shutdown procedure, so you can directly power off the Array and manage the shutdown process without any data loss, which is a unique feature. Managing replication and data migration is also very easy."

    PeerSpot user Jason D., a cloud solutions architect at a tech services company, notes three features that make this solution valuable when he writes, "We've had different types of storage, and three things of this solution are valuable. The first one is its outstanding performance. The second one is its stability. In the about three years that we've had it, we've had component failures, but we never had a service interruption or any data loss. The third one, which is really critical, is that it is super easy to use in terms of provisioning, storage, and managing the arrays. I'm able to maintain a multi-site environment with a couple of dozen arrays with a single mid-level storage admin."

    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.

    SolidFire delivers all five core elements needed to deliver newfound storage agility to your next generation data center and beyond. With SolidFire you can deploy new applications and capabilities faster, provide more agile and scalable infrastructure, increase application performance and predictability, enable automation and end-user self-service and raise operational efficiency and reduce cost.

    Sample Customers
    Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
    RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation
    California Public Utilities Commission, RFA, 1&1, Ultimate Software , Endicia, ezVerify, MercadoLibre, Sungard Availability Services, ServInt, Elastx, Hosted Network, Colt, Crucial, iWeb, Datapipe, Databarracks
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Healthcare Company12%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization32%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company23%
    Manufacturing Company15%
    Media Company15%
    Energy/Utilities Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company21%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider27%
    Retailer20%
    Pharma/Biotech Company7%
    Transportation Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm21%
    Computer Software Company18%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Real Estate/Law Firm6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise57%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise41%
    Large Enterprise42%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business28%
    Midsize Enterprise26%
    Large Enterprise46%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise55%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise53%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise65%
    Buyer's Guide
    NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. SolidFire
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. SolidFire and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    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.

    See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.

    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.