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Cohesity SmartFiles vs NetApp StorageGRID comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
233
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (2nd)
Cohesity SmartFiles
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (19th)
NetApp StorageGRID
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (12th)
 

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.
SM
Evangelist / CTO at fgnext
Enables effective data management with reliable backup and recovery
Cohesity SmartFiles aids in data management with features like full-text search through indexed documents. The architecture supports backup, ransomware awareness, and data management on a converged platform, offering triple-protocol access (NFS, CIFS, and S3) while facilitating gradual improvements in access rights management. It allows for redundant setups, with automated backup and recovery options in a cloud environment.
Michael Lopez - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Systems Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Has reduced storage costs and improved snapshot management for large data workloads
The advanced features of NetApp StorageGRID which our upper management wouldn't agree to use, include the S3 feature. We are heavy into AWS, and my thoughts were to develop a small dev environment or even a POC environment on-prem. That's still up in the air as we continue on. Currently, AI has taken over everything with a focus on AI. The upgrades of NetApp StorageGRID present a challenge. It's a rolling upgrade, node by node. At one point, one node would not upgrade. The positive aspect is that it didn't take down the entire environment. The environment remained functional on two different versions. The scalability of NetApp StorageGRID has been proven as we've expanded twice. We started with six or seven nodes and have grown to 15 nodes. It does take time for synchronization to complete. From what I've seen, it took a couple of months for it all to sync up once adding nodes. However, it was transparent. It captured the addition and performed effectively, all happening in the background, steadily and surely.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is it never goes down. We can expand and create volumes."
"We chose Pure Storage primarily because of its combination of performance and ease of use."
"The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is the complete set of functions it provides."
"The solution is very reliable."
"The most valuable feature is the speed of it, as it is much faster than anything that we can get from similar competitors, and the solution helps to simplify storage."
"Overall, the best returns on investment have been operational simplicity, reliability, and reduced management overhead."
"It is always out of the box, and ready to use."
"The scalability is good."
"Cohesity SmartFiles aids in data management with features like full-text search through indexed documents."
"The technical support team is reliable and responsive."
"It has improved our operational efficiency through time consumption and logistics by 40 to 50 percent, and everything that had to do with our legacy tape solution has been improved and is now more efficient."
"The feature of StorageGRID that I find most valuable for ensuring data durability and protection is its Information Lifecycle Management functionality."
"Right now, we have an older StorageGRID. I like that we can grow it."
"NetApp StorageGRID is a great alternative to AWS S3 buckets. Erasure coding is very valuable."
"The backup features are valuable. I've heard from our backup and data protection people that our clients are very satisfied with the performance in junction with the backup, which they archive on this type of object storage."
"The most valuable feature is tiering."
"It helps automate our storage infrastructure and improve our operational efficiency."
 

Cons

"The pricing and licensing of Everpure FlashArray is a problem because Everpure is considered more expensive than competitors."
"What I dislike about Everpure FlashArray is that in the replication, if it is in the pod, we cannot directly add devices to the pod without breaking the relationship."
"It was not proactive communication."
"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."
"With the introduction of Albireo technology and 81x data de-duplication reduction, Pure Storage better start looking at more effective de-duplication techniques."
"In the next release, I would like to see file-level encryption."
"The difference in pricing could become a problem for Pure because the commoditization of the solutions could lead to a different price being a problem."
"We would like to integrate it more with our backup solutions."
"Users must remember that running DataProtect and files on the same cluster could threaten access if there is a platform failure. It's not suitable for applications needing high I/O or low latency."
"One key improvement I'd like to see in StorageGRID is enhanced visibility for management purposes."
"There was a small amount of confusion when working with StorageGRID and Active Directory for access. We had to do things three to four times resulting in our engineer troubleshooting a couple of things. The location of the menu, along with what is inside the menu: configurations, settings, etc., is not straightforward to users. Most users are Windows-based. So, when make logical changes to the menu which are not similar to Windows, users and administrators get confused."
"The only real issue that we have run into is, when we are cloning, we cannot do a thin provision clone, it has to be a full clone."
"The redundancy and reliability are great, but I also see room for improvement there. I would like to see more efficiency in the storage and dedupe/compression solutions."
"Improvements need to be made in the customer support area."
"The user interface of NetApp StorageGRID might need some tweaks, and configuration is maybe a little bit confusing for those who are not so experienced."
"Beyond the initial setup, this product is a little bit difficult to configure."
"The price is something that NetApp could improve, as with most companies. NetApp is known for not being the cheapest storage option, which is also valid for StorageGRID. There are other storage options on the market which we are aware of and have done proofs of concept for, but you cannot really compare the list prices because, as a big user of NetApp storages, we have totally different prices than some list prices. Still, the price information we got for other options are almost always less expensive than StorageGRID."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pure came in at a better price point than EMC and performed better than Compellent."
"Because the price is a bit higher than other products, the data reduction equalizes the price with amount of the data reduction."
"The price of Pure Storage FlashArray is expensive."
"The cost of Pure Storage is subjective and determined by your environment. Pure Storage tends to be more expensive than NetApp, but it is cheaper than EMC. Performance varies with data workload, making cost considerations complex."
"For us, as the customer, it reduced the price of the management."
"The price of the solution can be a bit expensive. There is an additional fee for support."
"The pricing is an issue. However, being all-flash, it will always be sort of expensive."
"We have seen a reduction in TCO."
Information not available
"We chose NetApp because of price and performance."
"With respect to pricing, it is okay. This product is mid-range."
"Creating your own data stores, backups, or storage grids, helps eliminate all these costs of downloading all the data back after you downloaded to the cloud."
"The pricing of StorageGRID falls within the typical range for enterprise-grade solutions and is comparable to other vendors such as Dell, NetApp, and Pure Storage."
"Our licensing is in INR it was around 25 lakhs, which is roughly two million."
"We pay for a license annually."
"NetApp is not known for being the cheapest storage option on the market. Almost all of the other storage options we looked at were less expensive than StorageGRID. The price is one thing to criticize, which is what we hear internally and from customers as well. They find the cost of the terabytes in this class of storage a little bit higher than expected."
"The licensing that the S3 service provides them from a FabricPool standpoint is more attractive than the licensing from AWS or Azure."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise161
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise11
 

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 Cohesity SmartFiles?
SmartFiles is an economical solution, priced per terabyte on the backend. Initial setup and licensing costs align wit...
What needs improvement with Cohesity SmartFiles?
Users must remember that running DataProtect and files on the same cluster could threaten access if there is a platfo...
What is your primary use case for Cohesity SmartFiles?
Our customers use Cohesity SmartFiles ( /products/cohesity-smartfiles-reviews ) in conjunction with Cohesity SpanFS (...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp StorageGRID?
As an administrator, I was not involved in the pricing of NetApp StorageGRID. From what I understood, it was cheaper ...
What needs improvement with NetApp StorageGRID?
The upgrades of NetApp StorageGRID present challenges. It's a rolling upgrade, node by node. At one point, one node w...
What is your primary use case for NetApp StorageGRID?
It started back when we first got NetApp StorageGRID at Cox Automotive, approximately seven years ago. We first got i...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
Storage GRID
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
1. Acer 2. Adobe 3. AIG 4. Airbus 5. Allstate 6. Amazon 7. American Express 8. Aon 9. Apple 10. ATT 11. Autodesk 12. Bank of America 13. Barclay's 14. Bayer 15. BlackRock 16. Boeing 17. BNP Paribas 18. Cisco 19. Coca-Cola 20. Comcast 21. Dell 22. Deutsche Bank 23. Equinix 24. ExxonMobil 25. Ford 26. GE 27. Google 28. HP 29. IBM 30. Intel 31. JPMorgan Chase 32. Kroger
ASE, DARZ GmbH
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