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NetApp NVMe AFF A800 vs Pure Storage FlashArray 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)
NetApp NVMe AFF A800
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
19th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (9th)
Pure Storage FlashArray
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
198
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is 0.9%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pure Storage FlashArray is 6.3%, down from 8.4% 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.
Tanveer Rahman - PeerSpot reviewer
A scalable solution that serves as a storage for the cloud services opted by organizations
My company uses NetApp NVMe AFF A800 as storage for our cloud The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O. The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better. I don't expect to see additional…
Nabeel Sayegh - PeerSpot reviewer
Supercharges enterprise storage by way of highly optimized hardware, comprehensive data management and a feature rich interface.
During their early years, I was a member of Pure's Customer Advisory Board. In addition, when we first adopted Pure, they did not have replication GA yet. We got into their beta testing program and help them work out certain issues with that technology. One weakness I can say the array has, still to this day, is limited control on scheduling snapshots. Depending on the type of replication schedule you are building, you may or may not have control on specifying the start time of a given replication schedule. This is not a very big problem in the grand scheme of things, but something nonetheless that has bothered me about the scheduler in general. Another area for improvement would be automatic host alias creation. Other platforms such as EMC Unity/PowerStore will automatically detect the host name, create a alias for it and associate the logged in HBA's to it. Pure does not do this for you and as a result, requires manual configuration. This can be very time consuming especially when you are deploying a large number of new servers.

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 features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."
"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."
"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."
"The latency is good."
"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"The solution is scalable."
"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"During the use cases of the solution, its reliability and suitability are the best."
"NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is easier to use than some other solutions and the UI is very good to use for day-to-day activities. Overall, the solution has good technology."
"Over the eight years, we've been using NetApp with ONTAP, we've never lost a bit of data, and we've only experienced a few minutes of downtime in that entire time."
"Low latency is the most valuable feature."
"We find the product to be very flexible."
"The product can be scaled vertically as well as horizontally."
"The most valuable features are stability and performance."
"You can easily scale up, and scale-out."
"Compared to Unity, these arrays offer significant advantages, such as NVMe technology and higher IOPS."
"Processes that used to take 40 minutes to two hours can be completed in five minutes."
"Their REST API is wonderful, well-documented, and easy to use."
"I find two features of Pure Storage most valuable. The first is the "safe mode" function, and the second is its simplicity."
"It upgrades in place which means we'll be using it well into the future."
"Pure Storage FlashArray offers numerous valuable features, such as low latency and high throughput."
"Cost, racial per terabyte, and speed is why we chose PureStorage. It was no brainer."
"The initial setup is very straightforward. You simply plug it in and turn it on."
 

Cons

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."
"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better."
"The initial setup should be easier, and more like a plug-and-play approach."
"The product’s UI could be better."
"Stability is an area with a certain shortcoming where the solution needs to improve"
"Sometimes, it takes a while to get somebody competent on the other end of the line. They do have engineers in multiple time zones around the world. However, their level-one support is not always the best."
"The technical support has room for improvement."
"Increasing the RAM, and including physical cords would be beneficial."
"The cost of the solution is quite high. It would be ideal if they could adjust it so that it's a but less."
"They can also include file services such as NAS shares and CIFS shares. There should be provisioning of the file shares from a unified array."
"We would like to see better troubleshooting aspects. It helps us if we can find out where the problem is. Right now, it's difficult. Sometimes it's difficult to pinpoint the issue. If they had more visibility and more troubleshooting feature built into the tool that would really help."
"The initial setup of the product is complex."
"FlashArray could improve on the administrative side. For example, when you need to upgrade the boxes, we can't do that ourselves. We need to open a ticket with support and have them do that for us. You don't need to be on the call with them. We tell them we have a slot that we want to upgrade, and they send us an email when it's done."
"The credentials on the iSCSI interface are only available to type in with the Chrome browser, and not with the Firefox browser."
"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."
"I would love to see a true one click upgrade solution. Right now, you have to click and schedule an appointment with Pure Storage to be able to upgrade. I would love for it to automatically download, install, and fall-over every controller as it updates."
"In the next release of this solution, we would like to see automated copy data management for SQL Server."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"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."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Considering the requirements and the situation, I don't feel that this is an expensive product."
"Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive."
"I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten."
"There are licenses for the use of this solution, such as commercial licenses."
"The solution is expensive."
"It could always be lower, but it's okay."
"It is a cheaper solution."
"I would rate it a seven out of ten for pricing. It could be improved."
"We are finding the TCO of flash to be lower than SSD implementations."
"The price is reasonable."
"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."
"The price, in general, is around $100,000, however, I know it costs more."
"Dell and Pure Storage offer competitive pricing, but Pure Storage might have a slight advantage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
23%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Educational Organization
9%
Educational Organization
34%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

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 NetApp NVMe AFF A800?
The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp NVMe AFF A800?
Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive.
What needs improvement with NetApp NVMe AFF A800?
The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better. I don't expect to s...
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 do you like most about Pure Storage FlashArray?
We consume less physical storage because of the solution’s deduplication and compression.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
The cost of Pure Storage is subjective and determined by your environment. Pure Storage tends to be more expensive th...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Information Not Available
Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp NVMe AFF A800 vs. Pure Storage FlashArray and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.