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Huawei OceanStor vs NetApp AFF comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Huawei OceanStor
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp AFF
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
311
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Huawei OceanStor is 2.2%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF is 9.3%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature
One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.
ChukwuemekaOnyemelukwe - PeerSpot reviewer
Uses a proprietary technology with simple interface and has easy deployment
If you are not generating a substantial amount of data, the available storage space might suffice, making scalability less of a concern. However, if your data generation increases and you require more storage, Huawei OceanStor offers solutions to expand your storage capacity. Expanding storage resources can involve additional costs and configuration efforts. Acquiring more storage solutions and ensuring their integration with your existing setup might require a significant investment of time and resources. While this process can be complex, it allows for seamless scalability as your data storage needs grow. I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.
Anna Sofo - PeerSpot reviewer
Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency
I like NetApp AFF's deduplication. The solution's AutoSupport feature is efficient and effective because customers are notified of potential issues before they experience problems with NetApp. The support is sold based on metro clusters, so they guarantee the client's business continuity. NetApp has an Active IQ app that allows you to get information on your smartphone.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."
"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."
"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"Huawei is much cheaper compared to Dell, offering a competitive price that makes companies consider their options."
"Huawei OceanStor provides numerous features that are tailored to cater to the requirements of all types of companies."
"OceanStor is cheaper than Dell EMC, and its management interface is quite simple."
"It is a highly available product."
"If your virtual machine that resides on it completely fills the storage space, thanks to it's built-in function of all-zero data space reclamation, you just have to ask to System Engineer to run a zero-free on hosts (thin provisioned) and you will get more space instantaneously."
"Huawei OceanStor has the capability of SSDs, high-performance disks, and higher disk support."
"The pricing is very reasonable."
"Stability: The product is designed to have always HA (High Availability) with redundant network and processors."
"At the file level, the protocols they support are easy to use. This improves resiliency and helps us run the environment."
"The mirroring of two different sites is great."
"AFF has opened our eyes in a different light of how storage value works. In the past, we looked at it more as just a container where we could just dump our customer dBms and let the customers use it in terms of efficiency. Today, to be able to replicate that data to a different location, use that data to recover your environment or be able to have the flexibility with the solution and data. These are things which piqued our interest. It's something that we're willing to provide as a solution to our customers."
"The ability to do SnapMirror or SnapVault for data resiliency and backup."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to do QoS."
"It has improved performance for our enterprise applications, data analytics, and VMs. These improvements are a result of all-flash, throughput, reliability, compression, etc."
"Performance. Mostly with our default settings it's good. All of the factory settings are fine. We don't have to tune it."
"The most valuable features of the solution are speed, performance, and reliability."
 

Cons

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"The main concern is regarding the usability of the data storage."
"The deployment took a little longer."
"The solution’s reporting could be improved."
"The duration of the built-in snapshot technology must be improved."
"The solution could improve by having better integration."
"They should introduce a feature to Huawei OceanStor similar to a storage controller, allowing for seamless integration of additional storage modules."
"The technical support has been a let down for us. It's something the company has to work on. We haven't been satisfied with their level of service."
"When it comes to the technical support team, I feel that the response time is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"In terms of improvement, the support could be a little better."
"After the three-year prepay, the extended warranty is a little expensive."
"I would like to see an improvement in the high availability of the NFS and CIFS sharing during upgrade and patching; this would help to avoid downtime."
"I honestly don't have anything of note on how they can improve."
"In terms of what needs improvement, I would like to see more consistency with the UI. It seems to change every few versions. The menus can be in a completely different place."
"We currently use some thin provisioning for our planning system, but we will probably move away from thin provisioning because our Solaris planning system actually has some issues with the thin provisioning and way Solaris handles it, since Solaris uses a ZFS file system. The ZFS file system doesn't like the thin provisioning changing things and it brings systems down, which is bad."
"It can get a little expensive if you need to add more disks. The cost is a pain point for us, especially in terms of expansion."
"NetApp could improve its security and AI features. In the latest version, I would like to see some ransomware protection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."
"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."
"Payment is determined by the amount of storage capacity required, and we have paid 50,000 euros for our usage."
"Overall, the solution's pricing was cheaper."
"The pricing depends on the features the customer wants, such as storage, RAM, and processors, but in general, Huawei is much cheaper compared to Dell and Cisco."
"Huawei OceanStor is a cost-effective storage solution."
"The product is cheap."
"Pricing is very fair."
"The tool's pricing is competitive and affordable. It has the best possible pricing that we can get from Huawei. The prices are fixed and there are no additional costs."
"I am satisfied with the tool's pricing, which is in the middle. It is overpriced. I rate it an eight out of ten."
"The price of NetApp is very expensive, but we don't know how much Pure is, so we can't compare."
"When we bought NetApp, it was very reasonably priced. When you factor in the time savings, it's highly cost-effective."
"The total cost, the pricing of it, has gone up quite a bit."
"One of the reasons we like this solution is that all of the features are included with the one license."
"With other options, you need to buy a couple of different products to achieve the same outcome."
"I am comfortable with the pricing, which is fair compared to others."
"The pricing is competitive when we compare it to other products."
"You need to be careful with the licensing since it can become expensive."
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Comparison Review

it_user186357 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
66%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...
What do you like most about Huawei OceanStor?
Huawei OceanStor has the capability of SSDs, high-performance disks, and higher disk support.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Huawei OceanStor?
Huawei OceanStor's pricing is very aggressive, making it highly competitive.
What needs improvement with Huawei OceanStor?
Huawei currently lacks a solution for high-performance AI, unlike other companies like DDN, WekaIO, or IBM BlueStore....
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 FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
OceanStor Dorado V3 All-Flash Storage System, OceanStor 18000 V3 Series Storage Systems, OceanStor 6800 V3 Storage System
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Piraeus, Clinique Univeritaires Saint-Luc
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
Find out what your peers are saying about Huawei OceanStor vs. NetApp AFF and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.