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NetApp AFF vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays 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
17th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
NetApp AFF
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
314
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (2nd)
NetApp EF-Series All Flash ...
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
24th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF is 8.8%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NetApp AFF8.8%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe1.4%
NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays0.9%
Other88.9%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256
Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades
I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.
KennethEtsula - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Manager at Spartec
Offers seamless installation and efficient data handling with robust support
NetApp AFF provides an all-flash storage solution for unified SAN solutions, supporting both SAN and NAS functionalities. Data reduction capabilities such as deduplication, compression, and compaction are standard features included with the license in NetApp AFF. With the storage efficiency from a NetApp AFF installation, users can manage substantial data running on all-flash. The features such as compaction and compression provide storage efficiency guarantees in an all-flash environment.
Tayo Olubanke - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at GCET
Offers flexibility and top-notch technology
You can go to bed peacefully if you have a NetApp. If you have NetApp within your data center, you get to know about power failure if you are using it. Your NetApp will still come alive. Even if it does not come alive, I can say that it is not like other tools when it comes to dealing with power failure. The tool is affordable, and the technology is top-notch. It is the only technology that has software for what we call inline compression and deduplication. All the products under NetApp are aiming to use AI. I know that you can achieve whatever you want to do with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."
"The best features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe include the volume snapshot capabilities, which allow us to save most of the storage space by volume snapshots periodically."
"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"Scalability is excellent. If we need more space, it's a no downtime solution. It's harder to get the funding than it is to get the solution itself."
"The most valuable features for AFF are the speed, durability, back up, the time, the workloads that we are using currently are much faster than what they used to be. We're getting a lot of different things out of All Flash."
"The most valuable aspect of NetApp AFF is the money it saves our organization."
"Our AFF 8040 is currently helping us in terms of response time and speed because it is a flash system. Most importantly, it enables our SQL Cluster to respond to database queries and things a lot faster. It minimizes latency."
"The most valuable feature of AFF is that it offers better visibility and control over performance, ensuring it meets customer needs effectively."
"​It supports our virtualization, our VMware environment."
"Snapshots, snap clones, backups, flexibility, and agility are valuable features. I like that NetApp AFF is easy to use. We can automate everything for our backups and use cases. It's fast and simple, and provides storage to all of our VMware ESX hosts. It expands easily as well."
"We found AFF systems very competitive in terms of performance, storage efficiency, feature richness, and scalability."
"Rapid deployment, easy integration management and cloning of areas."
"It provides multi-protocol, which is what gives the edge when it comes to big lineage PC workloads."
"It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its speed."
"The management of it is very simple. that is the most valuable feature."
"The NetApp EF-Series gave our organization easy access to our data bases."
"One of the most valuable features is the overall performance it provides. You're able to throw a pile of IOPS at it and it will handle that without much issue."
"I like the performance aspect of EF Series. It basically provides everything that we are looking for as a solution, very low latency and very high performance."
 

Cons

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."
"We need better data deduplication."
"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."
"We have been seeing some challenges around the application layer implementation. We are having some teething problems now with the cooperation between the application layer and backups to things, like SnapCenter. This may be a question of product maturity."
"The certification classes are good, but they don't cover enough of the material, and the exams only test on what is covered in class."
"The response to basic problems could be faster. They usually respond fast when there are critical issues, but you always want it right now."
"Technical support could use some improvement."
"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."
"There are no pNFS with VMware VVOLs."
"There is room for improvement in terms of support. I have noticed that if I sometimes call their customer care for a particular issue, they will give me another number and ask me to call that other team. It would be better if they could do a warm transfer. That would save customers time from calling all the numbers again and speaking to another team."
"This is an expensive solution that could be cheaper."
"The solution's technical support is not as good as it is supposed to be since you have to push them to get support."
"I would like to shrink it more, if we can. The smaller, the better."
"The management interface, while very reliable, it seems a little old now and could maybe use a little modernization."
"A little more manageability, a simpler management interface. It's not necessarily that it's way overly complex. It's just that it's not as easy as the FAS series."
"Better integration with other brands is important so we would like to see it easier to integrate."
"The pricing could be cheaper and it should have documentation in more languages, specifically, Russian."
"As far as the manageability, being able to port between the two and have to do less training in-house from a customer point of view, that would be the part to improve."
"This solution has limited storage."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."
"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 product is expensive."
"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."
"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."
"It's expensive. it's in the hundreds of thousands. It's beneficial, but at times, I feel compared to other vendors, we are paying a premium for the licensing that other vendors include."
"All features are included in the license, whereas with an EMC solution, you have to pay separately for extra terabytes."
"The pricing is pretty reasonable for what we get. But if you have to buy any more disk space, it can be quite expensive."
"The price of NetApp is very expensive, but we don't know how much Pure is, so we can't compare."
"Comparing this solution to others it may seem expensive, but the price to performance for NetApp is greater."
"Other vendors may come in at a cheaper price point, but you will pay in the end with management costs and downtime."
"With other options, you need to buy a couple of different products to achieve the same outcome."
"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."
"The pricing is comparable with other competitors and similar in mid-range solutions, and for high range solutions, it would depend on our requirements or needs."
"NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is an expensive product."
"Adding more capacity will increase the cost."
"he price point that we're getting is very competitive in the market. Since we are buying in such a large quantity, they gave us a huge discount."
"They provide licenses upon purchase, so there's no need for additional licenses. Regarding additional expenses apart from the standard licensing fees, such as for support or maintenance, there aren't any. Updates take around twenty to thirty minutes, including rebooting the systems, and we haven't faced any problems with the NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. We utilize various other storages like Fujitsu, IBM, and Dalian SIP, but the NetApp EF-Series stands out as we've had no issues throughout the entire year of usage."
"They need to improve its pricing. The storage market is dying. So, they need to improve the price because it should reach all people. NetApp is one of the top ones, and they are charging a little bit of royalty as compared to other storage solutions."
"It's a way to get relatively low-cost, very high-performance, low-latency block storage as a point solution."
"The price point for EF is considerably lower than the alternatives."
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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
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
5%
Computer Software Company
14%
Performing Arts
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise242
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise18
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?
One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to rene...
What needs improvement with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?
The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. I want NetApp's supp...
What is your primary use case for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?
There are so many things to talk about around the use cases associated with the tool. There are so many reasons why I...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp AFF vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.