Hitachi Universal Storage VM [EOL] vs NetApp AFF comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Hitachi Vantara and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Additionally, 100% of Hitachi Vantara users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Hitachi Universal Storage VM [EOL] and NetApp AFF based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Everpure (formerly Pure Storage) and others in All-Flash Storage.

To learn more, read our detailed All-Flash Storage Report (Updated: October 2026).

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

October 2026

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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

Everpure FlashArray

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV

Technical Lead at Wipro Limited

Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades

The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.

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it_user1205586

Chief Solutions Architect at Science Applications International Corporation

Good price-performance ratio, provides simplified provisioning and management

We use this solution for provisioning and management The most valuable features are simplified provisioning and management, de-duplication, and built-in encryption. The exterior display needs to be improved. Sorry, I like the blue lights the competition has, but maybe we can see green led lights…

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Mir Gulzar Ahmed

IT Manager at Synergy Computers

Unified storage has delivered efficient AI analytics and low latency for critical workloads

There might be some lag or response time with respect to support cases, but even then I will rate it 8.5 out of 10. All of this is the same for all product ranges, whether E-series, NetApp AFF, or FAS series, because they are very efficient to respond. The only reason I rated it 8.5 is because the warehouse for spare parts, when a problem comes, a spare is needed to replace it, for example, a disk. In Pakistan, they have only one warehouse in Karachi. This warehouse manages all the problems when a problem comes. They ship the part based on the customer use case and customer service request. That is the only reason I rate it 8.5 because they have only one warehouse in Pakistan, which is in Karachi. For example, if a problem comes in Islamabad, it will take time to deliver the spare because the part will be shipped from Karachi to Islamabad, which will take around maybe a day. Other OEMs have their warehouses in Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi also. In terms of part replacement requirements, they are very efficient in that area because they have warehouses in multiple cities of Pakistan.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Compared to other storage boxes, Everpure FlashArray is very useful because it is cost-effective and requires less work."

"The most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray are simplicity, ease of use, and dashboard management."

"In terms of performance, I find Everpure FlashArray's performance is better than the competition; the price is a little bit higher, but performance is outstanding, as expected."

"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."

"Pure Storage technology allowed us to automate tasks, reducing something which started as a 12-hour turnaround down to about 15 minutes."

"After installing Pure, the processes that would take 40 minutes to two hours to complete are now done in five minutes."

"The amount of throughput that we're getting is really nice."

"This solution has helped my organization by cutting down on provisioning time. I used to have to provision a VM and it would take ten minutes. Now, it takes thirty seconds."

More Everpure FlashArray pros

"The most valuable features are simplified provisioning and management, de-duplication, and built-in encryption."

"This solution had the best cost and it was easy to work with the Vendor."

"The deduplication technology that it gives us means that we are getting more storage for our money."

"If you are looking for long-term stability, performance improvement, and data compression, NetApp is the answer."

"The most valuable features of the solution are speed, performance, and reliability."

"SnapMirror is definitely the most valuable feature for us, as it allows us to have a snapshot in minutes and we can use it to restore quickly from a backup."

"Logical data might be very high, but the physical data, because of efficiency features such as dedupe and compression, has greatly reduced data, therefore we are getting 10 to 20 times the efficiency on this product."

"We are more likely to consider NetApp for mission-critical storage based on our experience with AFF."

"We have had such a good experience with NetApp that our next logical step up from our previous device was just another NetApp."

"Technical support is excellent; we have an excellent team with NetApp, they help us and they are available anytime that we need them."

More NetApp AFF pros

Cons

"Regarding documentation, it would be helpful if we could have access to the root passwords for administrative tasks."

"A noticeable area for improvement is the support for object storage. The FlashArray does not natively support object storage like S3 or Swift, which pushes customers needing these features towards the more expensive FlashBlade."

"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."

"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve the recent file storage capabilities because it is lacking a lot of features."

"I would like to see them develop the ability to integrate with more AWS services. There are increasingly more and more services coming out from AWS but there are also certain constraints where we can't move everything over to a cloud as well. We would like for things that are on-premise to be easily integrated with AWS."

"It was a little costly. The price was ultimately higher than both of the other solutions that we evaluated. I'd say that's the only downside."

"I want to improve the overall service level of the solution."

"When we were doing some tests, we found that there was an I/O freeze when they were switching the controller."

More Everpure FlashArray cons

"The exterior display needs to be improved."

"It used to give us the volume where LANs should be placed when we created a LAN in the older version. However, in the newer version of ONTAP, it does not give where to place the LAN in the volume. So, that liberty has been taken away. If that was there again, it would be very good."

"We have to work with technology that we can deploy ourselves, run where we decide, and not necessarily anywhere, and that can survive for long periods of time disconnected from a cloud. For us, that's probably been one of the bigger cybersecurity challenges: how do we maintain security, maintain updates, patches, profiles, policies, and all that stuff without subscribing to a service from your friendly neighbourhood cloud provider? This product does a better-than-average job of that."

"Customer service is one area of the product line where I would love to see improvement."

"I have experienced slow responses several times, if the ticket has only been opened in portal."

"NetApp AFF could improve SAN storage because it feels as if it was not put together at the beginning, it functions as an afterthought. Additionally, the cloud features could be more mature."

"The response to basic problems could be faster. They usually respond fast when there are critical issues, but you always want it right now."

"NetApp should offer more training so everyone can learn about the products."

"The system is pretty stable but most of the ONTAP versions are not really stable. There have been multiple bugs in different ONTAP versions."

More NetApp AFF cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You can pay extra for Evergreen support, which gives you free upgrades when new features are introduced."

"While more expensive than NetApp, Pure Storage FlashArray offers superior performance that often justifies the higher cost and adds value overall."

"Pure has been flexible with us on the pricing models."

"We lost a lot of customers because we couldn't compete on price with other vendors."

"Cost-wise, I imagine that the product's price would probably give you a nosebleed if you were a younger company."

"I'm good with the licensing. Of course, pricing can always be less... It's actually not a bad pricing model, considering I don't have to rip-and-replace."

"Once you purchase Pure Storage FlashArray it is all-inclusive, you receive all the licenses needed."

"I have had a couple of customers who have complained about the cost. It can be a little more expensive than some of the other platforms. After it has been installed, I have never had a customer say, "I wish we wouldn't have spent all that extra money." They have always been happy with the product after it has been installed. They might be on the fence about it because of the price, but everybody who I have ever seen install it, they are always happy with it."

More Everpure FlashArray pricing and cost advice

"This solution has a good price-performance ratio."

"The total cost, the pricing of it, has gone up quite a bit."

"I am comfortable with the pricing, which is fair compared to others."

"Planning of all the lifecycle storage with NetApp AFF is part of the solution. While it is not cheap, they have introduced a new series of AFF that are more affordable, providing options for more users."

"Obviously depending on the price point, NetApp is obviously a little more expensive than your generic Dell SAN solution or whatever."

"It is pretty expensive compared to other solutions. I would give it a seven or eight out of 10 in price (where 10 is expensive) compared to similar solutions."

"NetApp AFF is an expensive solution."

"The price to performance ratio with NetApp is unmatched by any other vendor right now."

"ATTO bridges add to the total cost of the system."

More NetApp AFF pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user186357

Solutions Architect with 51-200 employees

Jan 28, 2015

NetApp vs. XtremIO

Is there another storage platform as feature rich as NetApp FAS? I think it is fair to say that NetApp FAS running Clustered Data ONTAP is a very feature rich platform – the move to the clustered version of ONTAP has brought many next-generation features including Scale-out and Non-disruptive…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Outsourcing Company

No data available

Manufacturing Company

12%

Outsourcing Company

12%

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	73
Midsize Enterprise	38
Large Enterprise	160

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	47
Large Enterprise	242

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?

Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?

When comparing cost, I find that the cost is either the same or slightly higher, but that is returned by the ease of ...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?

The only thing I think could be improved is price. The price is the main concern for our customers.

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What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?

Well, Is one thing NetApp Storage has vs other brand is the mix of protocol CIFS with NFS booth working together in t...

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What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?

This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended c...

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What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?

The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matt...

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Comparisons

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Compared 6% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 4% of the time

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Tintri VMstore T7000 vs Hitachi Universal Storage VM [EOL]

Compared 17% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Hitachi Universal Storage VM [EOL]

Compared 17% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs Hitachi Universal Storage VM [EOL]

Compared 15% of the time

Huawei OceanStor vs Hitachi Universal Storage VM [EOL]

Compared 15% of the time

DDN IntelliFlash vs Hitachi Universal Storage VM [EOL]

Compared 2% of the time

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Dell Unity XT vs NetApp AFF

Compared 7% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp AFF

Compared 7% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs NetApp AFF

Compared 5% of the time

VMware vSAN vs NetApp AFF

Compared 4% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs NetApp AFF

Compared 4% of the time

More NetApp AFF Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Everpure FlashArray

October 2026

Download Everpure FlashArray product report

Buyer's Guide

Frame-Based Disk Arrays

October 2026

Hitachi Universal Storage VM [EOL] report

Download Hitachi Universal Storage VM [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp AFF

October 2026

Download NetApp AFF product report

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray

HUS VM

NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS

Overview

The FlashArray family delivers consistent, high-performance data services across block, file, and object workloads. As part of the Everpure Platform, it provides the foundation for a unified data plane, enabling applications to reliably access, protect, and manage data across environments with simplicity and predictability. With built-in capabilities such as inline data reduction, snapshots, replication, and ransomware resilience, FlashArray ensures efficient operations, protected data, and consistent application uptime.

As the foundation of the (unified) data plane, FlashArray enables policy-driven automation, monitoring, and centralized management while integrating across cloud and on-premises environments. Built on an Evergreen architecture, it supports non-disruptive upgrades and continuous performance improvements over time while simplifying operations at scale.

What Key Features Does FlashArray Offer?

Simplicity and Speed: Easy management and rapid performance enhancements.
Data Reduction: Effective deduplication and compression.
Flash Architecture: Seamless upgrades and outstanding resilience.
VMware Integration: Excellent compatibility with virtualization platforms.
Predictive Analytics: Strong insights for proactive management.

What Benefits Should Users Consider?

Reliability: Proactive support with minimal downtime.
Efficiency: Reduced storage footprint and enhanced data management.
Performance: Faster processing speeds and low latency.
User Experience: Simplified management with Evergreen model.

In industries like finance, banking, and healthcare, FlashArray supports high-performance storage needs focusing on virtualization and database environments. Employed for VMware workloads, disaster recovery, and storage provisioning, it ensures application performance in private or hybrid cloud setups while enhancing management of virtualized environments.

Everpure (formerly Pure Storage)

The Hitachi Universal Storage Platform VM delivers proven enterprise-class functionality — advanced virtualization of externally attached storage, logical partitioning, thin provisioning and universal replication — in flexible, cost effective service oriented configurations.

Hitachi Vantara

NetApp AFF provides high-performance storage solutions, emphasizing speed and efficiency for demanding applications. Its features include low latency, inline deduplication, and seamless integration, making it ideal for businesses needing reliable storage and data management.

NetApp AFF stands out in offering rapid data access with features designed to meet the demands of high-speed environments. With capabilities such as low latency and inline deduplication, it ensures efficient data management. Data recovery and SnapMirror enhance its appeal for businesses focused on utility and integration with other NetApp systems. The clustered Data ONTAP enriches the user experience, making NetApp AFF a strong choice for those prioritizing usability and performance during migration. However, some users highlight the steep learning curve and high costs, along with the need for better integration, monitoring tools, and technical support. Improvement in migration, scalability, documentation, and automation is also desired, along with more competitive pricing.

What are its standout features?

Speed: Offers rapid data access for high-demand applications.
Low Latency: Ensures quick response times.
Inline Deduplication: Optimizes storage efficiency.
Seamless Integration: Integrates smoothly with NetApp systems.
SnapMirror: Facilitates efficient data recovery.
Clustered Data ONTAP: Enhances user experience.

What benefits should users look for?

High Performance: Supports critical applications with speed.
Reliability: Provides robust data management solutions.
Data Utility: Enhances data access and recovery options.
Efficient Migration: Ensures smooth transitions with minimal disruption.
Integration Support: Works well within existing NetApp environments.

NetApp AFF is commonly utilized in industries such as telecom, healthcare, and insurance that require high-performance storage. Virtualization, database management, file storage, and NFS/CIFS protocols are key use cases. It supports high availability and disaster recovery, serving as the backbone for VM and Hyper-V infrastructures. Organizations also benefit from its low latency and support for AI workloads, optimizing operational efficiencies.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas

Hanergy Global Solar PV Application Pte Ltd

DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Everpure (formerly Pure Storage) and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: October 2026.

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