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PeerSpot user
Chief Information, Facility, Purchasing and Services Manager at Roma Metropolitane S.r.l.
Real User
Some of the features are low latency, inline deduplication, and compression.
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features are extremely low latency, high IOPS with VMware, inline deduplication and compression."
  • "I’d love to view the average, minimum and maximum performance in the reports (Analysis tab - Performance) but it is only graphics and you need to export data in CSV to find this information."

What is our primary use case?

Our VDI with VMware Horizon include 100 VM for office and graphics desktop with nVidia GRID, the low latency and the high deduplication permit to reduce storage footprint, power consumption and to increase the consolidation on few VMware Host.

How has it helped my organization?

We have consolidated all the VSI (55 VM) and VDI (100 VM) in the same storage, improving performance and overall virtual desktop acceptance.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are extremely low latency, high IOPS with VMware, inline deduplication and compression.

We liked the non-disruptive downgrade from FA-420 (POC) to FA-405 in production and the non-disruptive upgrade from FA-405 to M20.

What needs improvement?

Reports of performance and LUN utilization could be improved. The VVol support is just released in GA.

Pure has global deduplication and the reports (Analysis tab - Capacity) are not clear, you don’t know how much Shared Space is used by each LUN but only the “Unique“ Space and the Snapshot Space.

I’d love to view the average, minimum and maximum performance in the reports (Analysis tab - Performance) but it is only graphics and you need to export data in CSV to find this information.

Buyer's Guide
Pure Storage FlashArray
June 2025
Learn what your peers think about Pure Storage FlashArray. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
859,687 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There were no stability issues. It is always on from the first LUN deployment to VSphere.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There were no scalability issues. NDU and NDD were very simple, without interruption or performance decrease for its cluster nature, active/passive.

How are customer service and support?

Customer Service:

I would rate the customer service as very high.

Technical Support:

They are all skilled. They upgraded the storage firmware from remote every time we asked via a phone appointment.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have used 3PAR for VDI and NetApp for VSI. The new solution has a very low price/performance ratio. With the price of the SSD upgrade of our NetApp FA3220 and the one year maintenance of the old 3PAR, we bought Pure Storage with a three-year support agreement.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very simple. In two hours, we started to use Storage vMotion.

What about the implementation team?

The product was implemented directly by the vendor’s team and they are very skilled.

What was our ROI?

In two years, we will start to save. With their Evergreen Storage subscription, we can enjoy protection of our investment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Everything is included, so there is very simple licensing. F

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated EMC XtremIO and NetApp FAS.

What other advice do I have?

Test it in your environment in a PoC or in a Try-and-Buy to check your deduplication and compression ratios.

Pure has global deduplication and the reports (Analysis tab - Capacity) are not clear, you don’t know how much Shared Space is used by each LUN but only the “Unique“ Space and the Snapshot Space.

I’d love to view the average, minimum and maximum performance in the reports (Analysis tab - Performance) but it is only graphics and you need to export data in CSV to find this information.

IPv6 is now fully supported, Windows Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX) is added in the latest firmware as supports for Docker APKG 1.0.1 and Dynamic Volume in the Purity Container Engine.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer762012 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Systems Engineer at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
It has made working with storage as easy and simple as it should be
Pros and Cons
  • "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."
  • "The deduplication and compression rates are beyond impressive."
  • "I never have to worry about its performance or if it is the root cause of an issue."
  • "It has made working with storage as easy and simple as it should be."
  • "Just some nit picky stuff, like allowing servers and volumes to be grouped. Therefore, it would easier to work with them in the GUI."

What is our primary use case?

SAN solution for Tier 1 storage for VMware, Exchange, SQL, and physical servers; trying to fit as much production load as possible on them.

How has it helped my organization?

The speed to deploy or move VMs is ridiculous. By migrating our important systems to the Pure arrays, we have removed any storage issues and questions when there is a problem of "is it the storage?"

The deduplication and compression rates are beyond impressive. 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.

What is most valuable?

  • Ease of setup
  • Migration to it
  • Upgrading
  • Support responsiveness
  • Kick-butt mobile app
  • On box analytics and vCenter plug-in
  • The ease of creating a snapshot for testing or recovery.

I cannot stress enough the stability, speed, and awesome deduplication and compression rates. The amount of data we have moved to it has allowed us to remove units four times the size. The mobile app is kick-butt and support has been topnotch.

What needs improvement?

Mainly, just some nit picky stuff, like allowing servers and volumes to be grouped. Therefore, it would easier to work with them in the GUI.

For how long have I used the solution?

Less than one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

None.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues.

How are customer service and technical support?

It has been great; easy to work with to resolve cases or perform upgrades.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Yes, plainly put, it sucked and we wanted to get to a solution that was fast, easy to maintain, and reliable.

We had issues with it not handling the load and could never trust that it was serving data fast enough to not be causing issues.

How was the initial setup?

Easy as pie.

What about the implementation team?

In-house.

What was our ROI?

  • Speed
  • Time saved in management
  • Availability
  • No fingers pointing at storage as an issue.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is a more expensive solution, but it is worth it. You are getting what you paid for. I never have to worry about its performance or if it is the root cause of an issue.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at Nimble and EMC.

What other advice do I have?

I never have to worry about its performance impacting the firm. It has made working with storage as easy and simple as it should be.

I had high expectations and they have met or exceeded each one of them. It was an exciting day when I finally got them up and running.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Pure Storage FlashArray
June 2025
Learn what your peers think about Pure Storage FlashArray. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
859,687 professionals have used our research since 2012.
PeerSpot user
Senior IT Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
The GUI is very easy to use and intuitive
Pros and Cons
  • "The GUI is very easy to use and intuitive."
  • "Non-disruptive upgrades: You can upgrade at anytime without worry."
  • "Very stable; no worries about how much it can handle."
  • "I would like some form of QoS implemented. As a service provider, it would be beneficial to have it."

What is our primary use case?

Production storage for a lot of virtual machines. As a service provider, it is very important to have something with this much performance.

How has it helped my organization?

  • Cuts VM deployment down to seconds. 
  • Cuts latency under MS. 
  • Amazing performance. 
  • Very stable; no worries about how much it can handle.

What is most valuable?

  • Non-disruptive upgrades: You can upgrade at anytime without worry.
  • The GUI is very easy to use and intuitive. 

What needs improvement?

I would like some form of QoS implemented. As a service provider, it would be beneficial to have it.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Storage Solutions Architect at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
The price was slightly higher than others but competitive if you consider all the other features that you get from it
Pros and Cons
  • "Performance, deduplication, compression, and fast response time for requests from servers and applications."

    How has it helped my organization?

    Our database administrators had to run some manual process twice a week since the disk performance of our previous storage unit was not able to respond to the requests fast enough.

    This process took approximately four hours and it had to be done manually twice a week by the DBAs. After the implementation, the time to run the process was reduced to minutes and it did not require any manual intervention from our DBAs.

    What is most valuable?

    Performance, deduplication, compression, and fast response time for requests from servers and applications.

    What needs improvement?

    I have not been able to find one yet.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    We did, but it was partially due to our environment. We were running outdated firmware in the HBAs for our HPE Blade Servers and an old version of vSphere that it is not supported by VMware.

    We decided to keep these servers under with the previous storage array to avoid disconnects and system outages.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    No, the unit that we bought contains 40TB of usable space and we are using 10TB so far.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Technical support is great. They will dive in deep with your team to figure out what is causing the problem for them and find the root cause.

    I wish they could collaborate more with the other vendors internally, instead of us opening cases with Cisco, HPE, VMware, etc.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We have another platform using spinning disk 600GB 15K RPM SAS drives, but our applications and servers have grown so much that the storage was getting saturated with the requests from the applications.

    We discussed the option to add more SAS disk and memory to the controllers of that array versus buying a Solid State Drive Array (SSDA).

    We concluded that it would be more beneficial for our company to invest in an SSDA, and the results paid off.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup was straightforward and very easy to implement, as long as you have all the information that you need ahead of time.

    For instance, IP addresses, iSCSI IPs and adapters, switch configurations and ports enabled, etc.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The price seems fair according to the market. We analyzed multiple All-Flash Arrays (AFA) in the market, but Pure came at the top in many areas.

    The price was slightly higher than others, but competitive, if you consider all the other features that you get from it. I love the Evergreen model to replace any parts after three years with a newer part as part of your support contract. The licensing is based on your capacity.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We researched other products from Kaminario, NetApp SolidFire, Nimble Storage, EMC XtremeIO, and HPE.

    What other advice do I have?

    I always recommend a company to start with a proof of concept. That way, you can test your applications directly with the unit. It is critical to get a baseline of the before with your current storage array and after with an SSDA or an AFA.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user700146 - PeerSpot reviewer
    IT Architecture & Infrastructure Consultant at a hospitality company with 5,001-10,000 employees
    Consultant
    Redundancy and the fault tolerance of the platform are the most impressive.
    Pros and Cons
    • "Redundancy and the fault tolerance of the platform are the most impressive."
    • "The internal garbage collection process has been fixed recently in some OS updates so it is more efficient but that could be just a little better."

    What is most valuable?

    Redundancy and the fault tolerance of the platform are the most impressive. Also, this allows all the hardware and software updates to be completed while the system is completely online.

    What needs improvement?

    The internal garbage collection process has been fixed recently in some OS updates so it is more efficient but that could be just a little better. That’s it!

    How was the initial setup?

    Everything related to the hardware or software update of the system(s) are active with absolutely NO downtime and NO service interruptions.

    What other advice do I have?

    The m50 will be our production machine for a brand new property, we have almost finished building. I can personally state that the Pure Storage Flash Systems are the best built and Pure has the utmost professional customer care. Pure only focuses on Flash and they do it well.

    The FA-450 pushes around 200,000 32k IOPS and with our load, which is not small by any means, we top-out around 50k-60k IOPS. It’s fantastic! We will soon upgrade both boxes to the newer m70 with some added capacity and all of which will take probably 30 minutes to complete.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user472458 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Solutions Architect at a non-profit with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Real User
    ​Data reduction and compression. Sub millisecond latency.​
    Pros and Cons
    • "Data reduction and compression. Sub millisecond latency."
    • "Had some issues with Purity not being entirely compatible with VMware ESXi."

    How has it helped my organization?

    We tested our VDI environment on this array and it performed flawlessly and boosted the user experience.

    What is most valuable?

    Data reduction and compression. Sub millisecond latency.

    What needs improvement?

    Had some issues with Purity not being entirely compatible with VMware ESXi.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Had some issues with Purity not being entirely compatible with VMware ESXi.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    No.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Very good.We did a PoC.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We use NetApp because of the variety of protocols it can support.

    How was the initial setup?

    Initial setup was by far the easiest. We racked and stacked the array and were up and running in 4 hours.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    There is always room for negotiation.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    Nimble and NetApp.

    What other advice do I have?

    Look at other competitor products as well.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user211857 - PeerSpot reviewer
    IT Program Manager at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Vendor
    All updates, upgrades, and hardware work are performed online with no impact
    Pros and Cons
    • "All updates, upgrades, and hardware work are all performed on-line with no impact."
    • "The number of Filesystems is limited, which it is not on the EMC VNX."

    How has it helped my organization?

    It has allowed us increased performance along with massive consolidation of space and power. We went from a two cabinet EMC VMAX to a 12U racked system. Very impressive.

    Compared to Pure Storage, the IBM V7000 has not improved anything yet within our environment.

    What is most valuable?

    The Pure Storage system is, of course, very fast and completely redundant. All updates, upgrades, and hardware work are performed online with no impact. The Pure Storage customer service is by far the best part of the product and organization.

    What needs improvement?

    We have found that the NAS portion of the software has limitations. For example, the number of Filesystems is limited, which is not the case on the EMC VNX. 

    The service team assigned to the project has good, hard-working people, but we are not receiving the kind of care we should receive to get the project done.

    As for IBM, they could increase the maximum storage capacity so more disk shelves can be added.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    There have been no issues with the stability of the Pure Storage solution. By contrast, with IBM we have had performance and spiking issues for which IBM applied a workaround patch.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    There have been no issues with the scalability for either Pure or IBM.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Customer Service:

    10/10 for Pure Storage.

    6/10 for IBM.

    Technical Support:

    Pure Storage is excellent, while IBM is only average.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    The IBM V7000 was bought for just NAS and secondary storage and for use as storage for our AS/400 platform. We switched to Pure Storage because of the way the system performs and the fact that it does everything in 32K sizing. The IOPS are high and the support and customer service are exceptional.

    How was the initial setup?

    Setting up the Pure Storage solutions was simple. It took 45 minutes to rack it and get it online. The IBM system was also fairly simple, taking about two hours to rack and get online.

    What about the implementation team?

    Both devices were installed through one of our partners who did a good job.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    We feel that the pricing is fair and the licensing process was easy for both.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We evaluated EMC (which we already had), Dell, and HP.

    What other advice do I have?

    The Pure Storage FlashArray is very good. Everything that Pure Storage told me is exactly what we have found to be true. It is the best production and implementation experience I have ever had.

    Regarding IBM, the sales team was great, as was the technical team. I now feel that EMC VNX and NetApp are both better NAS systems. If I had to do it over again, I would stay with the EMC VNX for NAS.

    We have not had a good experience with the IBM device. The installation and service were very good. However, the services to help us migrate our NAS data from an existing EMC VNX system have failed once already due to ACL permissions issues, specifically on how the V7000 NAS works. I have had to involved IBM Global Support by actually contacting high-level VPs. As of January 26, 2016, we have not successfully migrated our NAS data.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user302121 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Information Systems Analyst at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    It's got good speed for the price, as it uses eMLC, but it doesn't provide enough performance analytics.

    Valuable Features

    • It has a small footprint, as the current system is only four units per rack.
    • It's got good speed for the price, as it uses eMLC, an advanced type of SSD.
    • It's very scalable, and we're not paying for capacity.
    • We get free controllers every three years.

    Improvements to My Organization

    For VDI, there's a consistent user experience. Users don’t switch to VDI if it's not at the same speed as a laptop or desktop, and Pure Storage provides that.

    Room for Improvement

    It doesn’t provide enough information on performance analytics. For example, Nimble Storage has Infosight, which provides data; Pure Storage doesn’t have an equivalent. It has every other feature, but more data would be the only thing missing.

    Deployment Issues

    No issues with deployment.

    Stability Issues

    It's really good and we've never had problem.

    Also, it's very simple to use, and one of our customers described it as, “If you know how to use Facebook, you know how to use Pure Storage.”

    I think it's actually easier than Facebook.

    Scalability Issues

    It scales very well. A new box contains three units, and uses the power of a toaster oven.

    Customer Service and Technical Support

    We haven’t had to use it. We ran into some issues, but found their technical engineer not as good as Nimble Storage's.

    Initial Setup

    The setup is easy, but not as easy as Nimble. It took about five hours to setup.

    Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

    There's no additional licenses needed, as everything is included.

    Other Advice

    Once you try it, you’ll realize how easy it is to use. It has almost every feature.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user649044 - PeerSpot reviewer
    it_user649044Chief Information, Facility, Purchasing and Services Manager at Roma Metropolitane S.r.l.
    Real User

    I'm an happy Pure User, and after 2 non-disruptive upgrade I agree with this comment, the bad side is the reporting (used space, performance etc.)

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    Updated: June 2025
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