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NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs Zadara comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
17th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
NetApp EF-Series All Flash ...
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
24th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zadara
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
32nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (17th), Compute Service (10th), Public Cloud Storage Services (15th), File and Object Storage (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zadara is 0.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Pure FlashArray X NVMe1.4%
NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays0.9%
Zadara0.2%
Other97.5%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Tayo Olubanke - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
KK
IT Technical Architect at AVALIS
Troubleshooting becomes more accessible and management improves over time
I use this product as storage. Specifically, I use it as big storage. That's the main use case for Zadara Zadara's troubleshooting feature is very valuable for me. After the last update, managing the product became easier. Management is more straightforward and useful. These improvements are…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."
"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."
"The speed is the most valuable feature."
"Having the option of such high-speed storage in the data center is what makes it valuable."
"The solution allows us to segregate one storage unit from another."
"The stability, speed, and reliability are the solution's best features. The information is also very secure."
"The hardware and software of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are easy for us to use."
"It provides multi-protocol, which is what gives the edge when it comes to big lineage PC workloads."
"The product's initial setup phase can be managed easily and completed in 20 to 30 minutes. It is one of the fastest storage tools that you can implement."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"Zadara Storage Cloud having 24/7 management saves me support and engineering costs because the storage and computing are managed by a third-party. We are able to focus more attention on the customer, which is truly our core business. Even at 1:00 AM or 2:00 AM at night, someone will answer, which is important."
"A nice feature is the immutable object storage, which can be used in conjunction with Veeam."
"The processing is much faster with this product."
"One of the most valuable features is its integration with other cloud solutions. We have a presence within Amazon EC2 and we leverage compute instances in there. Being able to integrate with compute, both locally within Zadara, as well as with other cloud vendors such as Amazon, is very helpful, while also being able to maintain extremely low latency between those connections."
"It's very easy to expand and compared to other storage systems that we've used, it's a lot more expandable and a lot more flexible in how it's deployed."
"One of the most useful features is that they provide iSCSI as a service."
"Being able to scale on demand, and being able to get out of our security operation center, and not having to purchase hardware upfront, has drastically reduced the overhead that was required to maintain our information. We have also gained additional capabilities in terms of speed of replicating that information."
"I find Zadara's user-friendliness from both the customer and engineering perspectives highly appreciated."
 

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."
"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."
"The software layer has to improve."
"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."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"Things like the FlexClones, SnapVault, SnapMirror, all of that. Some of it's available on the EF series, but we like what we have in the FAS system."
"The price of the All Flash solution is very high."
"As far as the manageability, being able to port between the two and have to do less training in-house from a customer point of view, that would be the part to improve."
"It was difficult to implement and lacks some additional features that would be useful, but as a solution fits a particular need for our organization."
"We need a center related to NetApp in Egypt so that we can deal with them directly."
"I would like to see higher-capacity drives, as they come out; I have heard that 15 TB are out on a different NetApp series. Getting those on the EFs would be nice."
"The dashboard could be simplified."
"NetApp could improve the speed of the rebuilding rate."
"The initial setup of the solution is complex."
"The initial installation was difficult because many steps required the command line interface (CLI). Maintenance can also be complicated, especially when deeper troubleshooting requires navigating the CLI and searching for logs."
"The management interface is more geared towards end-users rather than a service partner like ourselves, and there are improvements that can be made around that."
"Cost-wise, because it's a pay-per-use model, it may ultimately end up costing us more in the long run than something we developed ourselves."
"Currently, when we do firmware upgrades, it sometimes causes issues and is not as nondisruptive as desired."
"The cost is not favorable as Zadara does not provide competitive rates for regions like South Africa and Ethiopia."
"I would like to see them be a little bit more proactive in terms of the patches and updates that are available. I would like to see more disclosure and information around what fixes or what enhancements are available within a patch, and help in coordinating and scheduling that. Right now, it's driven more by the customer in reaching out via a support ticket."
"There is room for improvement in pricing as it is currently quite expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing 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."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"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."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"They need to improve its pricing. The storage market is dying. So, they need to improve the price because it should reach all people. NetApp is one of the top ones, and they are charging a little bit of royalty as compared to other storage solutions."
"It's a way to get relatively low-cost, very high-performance, low-latency block storage as a point solution."
"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."
"Most of my customers pay for the license on a yearly basis. It can be expensive depending on the capacity number."
"NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is an expensive product."
"This solution is not available to many users because the cost is very expensive."
"Adding more capacity will increase the cost."
"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."
"The pricing and licensing are very simple and the cost is predictable, although, like everything that you pay for as you use, you have to be mindful of what you're using."
"One of the factors that ruled out several providers was cost. They were way too expensive for the volume of data that we needed and the speed at which we needed to be able to manage it. There aren't a lot of providers that can do that."
"For our use, it's appropriately priced and overall, it's proved to be very cost-effective against other tier-one vendors."
"The price of Zadara is very good and it covers everything. There is no subscription needed."
"It is a nice licensing model and it makes it quite simple because we just pay for what we use, and the bill that comes shows us exactly what customers are using what resources."
"The pricing is very competitive and the fact that they have very compelling discounts for multi-year commitments is great."
"If you just take the street price of Zadara Storage Cloud and look up the price or cost per hour, then you could think that Zadara Storage Cloud is extremely expensive or a solution only for enterprise use. That is not true. You need to compare the entire system. This means that you don't stop looking at just the street price, but you need to consider all the features, requirements, and costs of support as well as the extra cost that other vendors have. Other players just play with hidden, additional costs. Everything is included in Zadara Storage Cloud's licensing cost; what you get is what you pay for."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Performing Arts
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

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 E...
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 ...
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 rene...
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 supp...
What is your primary use case for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?
There are so many things to talk about around the use cases associated with the tool. There are so many reasons why I...
What needs improvement with Zadara?
The initial installation was difficult because many steps required the command line interface (CLI). Maintenance can ...
What is your primary use case for Zadara?
I use this product as storage. Specifically, I use it as big storage. That's the main use case for Zadara ( /products...
What advice do you have for others considering Zadara?
As for the pros and cons, the main concerns are the complexity of the initial installation and the complicated mainte...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation
Time, Inc. A&E Network, The Washington Post, News UK, McGraw Hill, Gilt, Toshiba, Deloitte, VMware
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. Zadara and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.