No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

HPE All-Flash Storage vs NetApp AFF comparison

Why PeerSpot?
Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
232
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
HPE All-Flash Storage
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (12th)
NetApp AFF
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
315
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (2nd), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
CH
IT Infrastructure Senior SAP BASIS Administrator at Embraco
Solution provides high availability and seamless integration for virtual environments
HPE All-Flash Storage offers flexibility for management, networking, storage for servers, and ease of integration, all of which are valuable. There is a good facility to increase more space. The storage has been very simple to use and offers high availability. I have never had any problems with it. Additionally, HPE support is very good with high knowledge and accessibility.
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The intuitive way of managing storage is what I appreciate about Pure Storage FlashArray, along with the clever use of flash modules, and absolutely the data reduction, because they are using that in a very clever way to do compression and deduplication."
"This solution is very scalable."
"The performance levels and the storage have improved my organization because we're a 95% virtualized environment and we're able to allocate resources as needed and manage our whole infrastructure that way."
"You can even review the devices from your phone. You don't need to be connected to your company's website or VPN to access alerts and reports. While you can't manage the devices using your phone, you can review all the important details about the machine."
"The console is simple to use. It has good performance. It is easy to install, understand, and manage, with a good ratio of deduplication and compression. It is doing its job."
"We have looked at all of the platforms, and to see what Pure was able to do within a PoC environment meant that we never turned back our PoC environment."
"Their technical support is excellent. It's the best out of any of the vendors we work with."
"Its array houses our entire production environment."
"The initial setup is easy compared to other vendors."
"The platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to process huge amounts of data."
"HP has its own software called InfoSight for the users. It performs predictive analysis and takes a proactive approach to identify issues even before failures occur."
"The storage has been very simple to use and offers high availability."
"The solution is easily manageable."
"HPE is excellent, at least in this part of the world in Kuwait."
"AFF has helped to simplify our infrastructure, while still getting very high performance for our business-critical applications."
"Storage is very reliable. You don't have to do much maintenance."
"The solution freed us from worrying about storage as a limiting factor."
"It has the most consistent performance for storage for VMware."
"The overall latency in our environment is very low because it's All Flash and we've got 10 Giga dedicated to the storage network"
"For the company I installed this for, their data warehouse system and ERP is ten times faster than it was before when they were using hard discs."
"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."
"Customer service is one of the best, and I am a demanding customer."
 

Cons

"A noticeable area for improvement is the support for object storage."
"For scalability, I rate it a six out of ten. We reach a limit. We never reached this limit, however, the architecture allows you to go until a certain size, and after that, you have to buy another array."
"The GUI could improve, it could be more intuitive. There is hidden functionality."
"Pure will probably have to move to other layers of the stack, not only storage but, maybe, hyperconverged."
"Many high-end platforms from other vendors like Dell EMC or Hitachi, their backend has Active/Active architecture, unlike Pure Storage FlashArray which doesn't utilize an Active/Active architecture on the backend."
"I would not say anything because we still do not use Everpure FlashArray fully."
"Some services could be inserted directly into the SAN, so Pure Storage could complete with the HyperFlex."
"There are scenarios with very specific functionality around VMware integration particularly to do with the way we'd like to manage LUNs in VMware. The tools are pretty good but there's room for improvement there."
"It might be expensive."
"The support, visibility, and reporting features must be improved."
"HPE All-Flash Storage does not have snapshot immutability, which is something I need. This was a significant factor in my decision to switch from HPE to Dell PowerStore."
"The product’s ability to recover information and generate reports needs enhancement."
"The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."
"It might be expensive. If budgets are not a concern for any client, I recommend All-Flash."
"The monitor and performance need improvement. Right now we are using the active IQ OnCommand Unified Manager, but we also have to do the Grafana to do the performance and I hope we will be able to see the improvement of the active IQ in terms of the performance graph. It should also be more detailed."
"Technical support could use some improvement."
"Other than that, if this were a standalone purchase, pricing would definitely be an issue."
"I would give it a perfect rating if they reduced the cost – it is still expensive – and then, what I have mentioned about HA."
"Comparatively, the level of support for this solution takes a little longer, but it’s all relative."
"We'd like to see them implement more subscription services into the base support model."
"The setup complexity is why I have not given it a perfect rating; not that it's a big deal."
"I know we're looking at cloud solutions, so maybe if they have something cloud-based, that might be something."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There should be quite a bit of reduction of TCO with just licensing (and stuff) because we run the VM environment off it."
"For us, as the customer, it reduced the price of the management."
"We have 16 or 18 arrays. We like to do the three-year support model so that we get Evergreen and therefore, we get free upgrades. We pay around more than 1.5 million dollars."
"I don't know the exact cost but it's around $1,000."
"I would rate the pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray a five out of ten. It is expensive but not too much."
"There are no licensing fees or other costs."
"It's expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership."
"The product is more expensive than one of its competitors."
"The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."
"The product is not cheap."
"The pricing is good."
"NetApps offers a lot of different options. Just take your time and work with the consulting teams. Lay out what your needs are to ensure you are purchasing what will help you be successful."
"NetApp AFF is somewhat pricey. If they weren't as pricey, that would be a big deal for us."
"I understand the cost is less than many other storages of same/similar performance benchmark."
"NetApp AFF is an expensive solution."
"ATTO bridges add to the total cost of the system."
"One of the reasons we like this solution is that all of the features are included with the one license."
"It consolidates a lot of our storage into one or two chassis, which makes money savings in our data center."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays solutions are best for your needs.
917,403 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user186357 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Government
10%
Music Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise160
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise242
 

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...
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 ...
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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE All-Flash Storage?
In my region, the pricing is good. We work with a local channel for HPE, which provides a good final price. The list ...
What needs improvement with HPE All-Flash Storage?
There are some areas that could be improved in HPE All-Flash Storage. The performance could be enhanced, as it is cur...
What is your primary use case for HPE All-Flash Storage?
The main use case for this storage depends on the organization. HPE All-Flash Storage is primarily suited for small a...
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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Information Not Available
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE All-Flash Storage vs. NetApp AFF and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,403 professionals have used our research since 2012.