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NetApp StorageGRID vs Quantum ActiveScale comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 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
7.3
Number of Reviews
217
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
NetApp StorageGRID
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (9th)
Quantum ActiveScale
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (27th)
 

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.
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.
FL
Architecture Department at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Good performance and reliable but the setup is complex
We would like to see a self-sufficient installation. Nowadays it's open-source, but the installation is still tied to the vendor, which means it is unlikely that it is going to scale. I want them to tap into the broader community. It is really emerging, they have a year over year, 50% annual growth. With a 10-year-old company, it will certainly bring a lot of interest, and will certainly make it more successful, if they tap into that growing customer base. They have to make themselves relevant to the industry. The industry is totally geared to the Cloud, DevOps, and geared for agility. The software with the appliance in my set is already outdated, and it is not that it cannot sell, but it has to be tapping into the emerging and growing sectors to continue with the customers and businesses. This is what the requirement is, to improve their technology. Which means that they have to make themselves relevant to the industry.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With this program, all of our applications are able to perform faster and this enables us to provide faster platforms and services to our customers and employees."
"They have really good baked in analytics to show you trends for growth history, so it does help with future planning for data growth."
"This is the best all-flash storage array on the market."
"Pure Storage FlashArray offers numerous valuable features, such as low latency and high throughput."
"The stability is perfect, the reliability is 100%, and the latency is always lower than 1 millisecond."
"Even if it costs a little bit more, you do get more for what you pay."
"One of the lesser sung advantages was when we started running our interface engine on Pure Storage. The ability to process messages and pass them through in our organization skyrocketed purely because of a disk that I owned which we were getting out of Pure Storage."
"Once we solved the data reduction and what Pure does we were hooked."
"The features or capabilities of NetApp StorageGRID that I have found the most valuable include scalability, interoperability, and integration options."
"It helps automate our storage infrastructure."
"We definitely saw the benefits of NetApp StorageGRID immediately as our growth of snapshots and our internal customers, including Kelly Blue Book, AutoTrader, and HomeNet, required long-term snapshots, and we saw the results of having NetApp StorageGRID saving us on SSD space."
"Duplication, interface and the manageability is good and simple."
"It has awesome scalability, as we consume it with storage appliance nodes, then we just plug and play as we need more."
"It helps automate our storage infrastructure and improve our operational efficiency."
"The feature of NetApp StorageGRID that has significantly improved data storage management for my customers is the value of the S3 API because it allows developers who are not infrastructure-oriented to use it and write code against it."
"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."
"Workflow is easy to manage and maintain."
"The operations and the functionality are very simple."
"Quantum ActiveScale is a reliable solution."
"The technology is stable which is good."
 

Cons

"Everything has been good, but we faced one issue last year while migrating volumes from one Pure Storage to another. The snapshots were not visible in the Veeam backup portal."
"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."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve the recent file storage capabilities because it is lacking a lot of features."
"Price per terabyte is substantially higher than their competition. We would like to see it drop."
"One thing I'd like to see in a future release is integration between their main storage array and what they call their FlashBlade product; to be able to snapshot directly from the primary array into multiple different backup copies on FlashBlade."
"In the next release I would like to see integration into other third-party player providers like Google."
"Self-backup is the only feature lacking in this solution."
"It falls far short of protocol support."
"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."
"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."
"If I could change anything in NetApp StorageGRID, that would be pricing."
"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 processes around installation and upgrade need improvement."
"I would like to see them integrate more with the monitoring platforms. It is a bit difficult to get automated monitoring of the system."
"Improvements need to be made in the customer support area."
"Improvements need to be made in the support area."
"We would like to see a self-sufficient installation."
"Lacks some ability to integrate with different systems."
"The setup is very complex, it took 18 hours for the first setup."
"I'd like to see more integrations with different systems and for the product to be more scalable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pure is typically more expensive than everyone else. You get what you pay for, but I have lost deals to similar solutions because of pricing. They include everything, and that's another positive about Pure Storage. They aren't trying to nickel and dime their customers for different features. It is all included in one price. The license is by capacity, and the price depends on the capacity and the discount we're getting from the vendor. You get the SKU of the physical appliance, support, and maintenance, and that's it. You're licensed for whatever feature they offer. It is all rolled up into the price of the appliance."
"I would rate the pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray a five out of ten. It is expensive but not too much."
"The price is very reasonable when compared to other solutions."
"We have seen a reduction in the TCO, because Pure Storage is partnering with Belfrics. This partnership reduces our latency and space."
"I'm good with the licensing. Of course, pricing can always be less... It's actually not a bad pricing model, considering I don't have to rip-and-replace."
"We would like them to improve the pricing, so we could put them to use some more product, like backup or long-term storage. In the future, if the price goes down, then we could buy different types of products."
"For pricing, you have to take into account their performance on deduplication and compression in a $/GB comparison."
"Pure Storage has not helped us to reduce our licensing costs."
"The pricing is quite flexible and depends on the specific customer requirements. The initial cost is primarily based on the desired capacity, so it's not a fixed price."
"We chose NetApp because of price and performance."
"I rate the product pricing around five out of ten—it's negotiable, depending on the circumstances."
"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."
"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 price is attractive."
"We pay for a license annually."
"With respect to pricing, it is okay. This product is mid-range."
"Quantum ActiveScale is open-source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Educational Organization
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business65
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise151
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise11
No data available
 

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?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
What do you like most about NetApp StorageGRID?
The management portals have most significantly improved our data retrieval times. They've made it much easier to rest...
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...
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Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
Storage GRID
ActiveScale, Quantum ActiveScale Object Storage, ActiveScale Object Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
ASE, DARZ GmbH
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp StorageGRID vs. Quantum ActiveScale and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.