SolidFire vs VNX [EOL] comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between SolidFire and VNX [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Pure Storage and others in All-Flash Storage.
To learn more, read our detailed All-Flash Storage Report (Updated: April 2024).
769,479 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
"We have seen savings in our storage. The speed of deployment has gone from several days to a few minutes. This product has reduced that time into minutes, simplifying storage for us.""It is easy to manage. You don't have to have the same people who used to manage the Dell EMC arrays because the solution is more intuitive.""Having fast storage allows actual servers to perform in high capacity so we don't have slowdowns on our applications.""Data deduplication features make it easier to manage storage and forecast growth.""This solution is very scalable.""It's very fast and very easy to use. It performs well and is both flexible and compatible. We like it because it's easy to use.""The amount of data that I have moved to it from legacy storage has enabled us to retire units that are three or four times the physical size.""We consume less physical storage because of the solution’s deduplication and compression."

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"Greater IOPS, speed, it's all-flash. So seeing that everything is going to all-flash, all SSDs, SolidFire fits right in there with the emerging trend in IT.""Overall performance of the solution.""The system efficiency is excellent overall.""SolidFire has seamless performance for the nodes and extensions. I also like the tool’s scalability. The product’s performance does not get affected when we scale either up or down. This is not the case with other products.""The most valuable feature of this solution is its scalability.""We can just buy them, scale them as we need on demand, and we don't have to spend so many front end cycles on designing the architecture.""Being able to provide quality of service as promised.""The dashboard is such that you don't need to be a storage expert to administer it."

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"Integration with VMware""I really value deduplication and compression to save space.""The most valuable feature is the tight VMware integration, due to the migration from bare metal to virtualized environments and then on to the cloud.""High availability including non-disruptive updates: We cannot afford downtime windows.""It is very stable even during multiple power failures.""From my point of view, the configuration that I can sell is restricted to the EMC best practices. It is hard to make a mistake in a solution. It means the configuration has good performance and scalability options.""Multi-tiering, positively affects the efficiency of the storage space.""The implementation of both block and file system storage in a single GUI provides is better situated than most other storages."

More VNX [EOL] Pros →

Cons
"The system has dual controllers but does not have a high level of resiliency built-in.""Pure Storage FlashArray could improve the recent file storage capabilities because it is lacking a lot of features.""What it needs to do is work a little closer with solutions, like VMware, so it understands the particular workloads that are on it. Today, it does not understand the applications which are running against it.""From a scalability perspective, it is a very small storage solution, so it's not very expandable.""I would rate this solution an eight. There's always room for improvement, nobody is perfect to get a ten out of ten. They do what they do well. It's not cheap but we it's for uses that we needed.""Currently, the solution fails to support file screening.""It's not so scalable. It's got moderate scaling capabilities right now. The clustering technology needs a bit of work, they need to improve that.""We did have one hiccup with the integration of vCenter. When we were installing Pure Storage, we were using vCenter 6.7, which defaults to the HTML5 Web Client. The current plugin for Pure Storage doesn't show up in that client at all. You have to go and use the legacy FlexFlash client to see the Pure Storage plugin in vCenter."

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"So feature-wise, I would say more reporting tools that could be merged into it.""A little better segregation of the multi-tenancy. Right now, it's just VLAN-specific, that's all you can do.""This solution would be improved if it were made to be more compatible with other products.""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.""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.""When you set up the nodes, we have to serial into each one of these nodes to configure the IP ranges. It's still very easy, but it's time consuming.""We have a large fiber channel infrastructure, and that's one area that we haven't seen implemented in SolidFire, its more iSCSI.""The tool should improve its initial cost which is expensive compared to other products."

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"The CLI could be better documented, like with VMAX.""The administrative console (Navisphere/Unisphere) needs some improvement, especially on their Java-based GUI. The updated version of Java is not compatible.""If the VNX had embedded encryption, that would be great.""Intel Xeon processors with under 2 GHz processing speeds could be replaced with more recent ones.""Poor connection to FC.""It would be very helpful to get an automated report that shows you the size of the checkpoints and get warnings when a checkpoint is reaching either maximum capacity per a file system or hitting the ceiling on the SavVol pool consumption.""EMC VNX needs to support bigger SSD and the Next Generation EMC Unity does this.""Based on our workloads, we see repeatedly in performance reports that the built-in controller (SP) cache of our VNX model is not sufficiently large, resulting in forced cache flushing."

More VNX [EOL] 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 →

  • "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 →

  • "The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable. Yearly EMC is more expensive."
  • "While EMC tends to be on the expensive side, the stability and support of their products are top-notch and I feel are worth the cost."
  • "Make sure you understand how the licensing works and that you are getting the right set of licenses if you need array-to-array replication."
  • "Over time, VNX has become pricier than its competitors, and we have turned enthusiastically to Unity."
  • "Pricing is somewhat higher, especially in Zambia, perhaps due to the low sales volume."
  • "The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable, the yearly EMC is more expensive"
  • "​Reducing dependency on JavaServer Pages​ (JSP) could improve the administrative overhead.​"
  • More VNX [EOL] Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    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: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 »
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    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    VNX
    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."

    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.

    With EMC VNX you'll have the right blend of flash, capacity, and application-aware software. Scale up storage for midrange workloads, optimized for virtual applications and cloud environments.

    Sample Customers
    Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
    California Public Utilities Commission, RFA, 1&1, Ultimate Software , Endicia, ezVerify, MercadoLibre, Sungard Availability Services, ServInt, Elastx, Hosted Network, Colt, Crucial, iWeb, Datapipe, Databarracks
    Samsonite, Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Kindred Healthcare
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Healthcare Company12%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization31%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider27%
    Retailer20%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Construction Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm21%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Real Estate/Law Firm6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm21%
    Retailer16%
    Healthcare Company11%
    Security Firm11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Real Estate/Law Firm13%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise57%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise40%
    Large Enterprise42%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise53%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise67%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise67%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business24%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise53%
    Buyer's Guide
    All-Flash Storage
    April 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Pure Storage and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: April 2024.
    769,479 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    SolidFire is ranked 19th in All-Flash Storage with 33 reviews while VNX [EOL] doesn't meet the minimum requirements to be ranked in All-Flash Storage. SolidFire is rated 8.2, while VNX [EOL] is rated 8.0. 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". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VNX [EOL] writes "The auto-tiering helps in the speed of data access". SolidFire is most compared with NetApp AFF, Dell PowerStore and VMware vSAN, whereas VNX [EOL] is most compared with .

    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.