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DDN IntelliFlash 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
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
DDN IntelliFlash
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
29th
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp AFF
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
2nd
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
311
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 DDN IntelliFlash is 0.4%, down from 0.5% 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.
Anil Rahulwar - PeerSpot reviewer
Good customer service and support and suitable for large environments
It is very easy to install. Users don't need to remember anything while deploying IntelliFlash because everything will be taken care of by tech support. They can easily modify the installation or change the password with the help of the tech support. It is very easy to integrate IntelliFlash with other solutions. We have plugins that can be integrated with other solutions. It will require maintenance. It is the same as any other storage solution: updates and upgrades, firmware upgrades, and drive upgrades.
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

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."
"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."
"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."
"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"It performed great originally, and when it performed great, it was awesome."
"We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways."
"It has reduced our electricity usage by reducing the amount of disks needed for the virtual environment."
"It's very fast. We were seeing read latencies of less than one millisecond. It is robust."
"Data Compression: Up to 80% space reduction in the database"
"It provides a combination of all the protocols that you need, without losing deduplication and compression."
"High performance and ease-of-management are the most valuable features."
"NetApp solutions are easy to maintain and upgrade."
"I'm from Germany, so we have lots of metro clusters. The ability to have two sides that are redundant across hundreds or thousands of kilometers is critical for our customers. We have several hundred customers with metro cluster systems, so that is one of the best features."
"The most valuable features are the speed and performance for our transactional workloads for our databases."
"All of the features are good. With Flash, we have high-performing databases. Having that kind of performance has been valuable."
"Replication would be one of the most valuable features."
"I would say the consistency with the ONTAP versions and the speed and performance from the flash."
"We had some customers who were running virtualization workloads on classical spinning disks. We implemented an AFF system, and they got a huge performance boost out of it because the latency of the SSDs is simply much lower. Actually, most customers benefit from the improved latency and performance from the AFF systems."
"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."
 

Cons

"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"It is on the expensive side."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"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."
"Performance is horrible now. Our original intent was to buy new storage in about two years. But since it became a critical urgency for us, we decided to purchase a new one in two or three months."
"It only keeps one hour of real-time data without the ability to do deep analysis of each element."
"We had just one small stability problem with power flapping and it did not start up again automatically. We had to access service ports and manually restart the storage processors."
"It's somewhat scalable, but maybe not so much as some of the competition."
"They need to offer better integration for a virtual platform to enable you to create hyper-converged solution."
"In the proxy section you can’t choose a user account and password, so it is not allowed at the moment to go out, if customer has such constellation."
"Snapshots are not as easy to access as on a NetApp device."
"In future releases, I look forward to more AI features."
"We had a lot of issues with two-factor authentication using, for example, Okta."
"In terms of improvement, IO performance could use some enhancement."
"NetApp could improve its security and AI features. In the latest version, I would like to see some ransomware protection."
"NetApp should offer more training so everyone can learn about the products. Other vendors have a lot of training options. It would be great if NetApp would highlight how to use the features more so that every admin or person can gain more knowledge about this technology."
"To enhance the already excellent administration, one area for potential improvement could be in terms of integration."
"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."
"There are no pNFS with VMware VVOLs."
"Going forward, I would like improvement in the response latencies, capacity size, cache, and controller size."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"The product is expensive."
"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 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."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"I think we pay around 100 grand per year for three arrays or four arrays."
"I recommend the full bundle software in order to have all the functionality. It is more expensive to purchase it one by one."
"Once we did get into the NetApp ecosystem, we realized that the cost effectiveness was greater than we originally thought."
"I understand the cost is less than many other storages of same/similar performance benchmark."
"I would like it to be a lot less expensive, but it's been a very good solution for us."
"The total cost, the pricing of it, has gone up quite a bit."
"NetApp AFF is an expensive solution."
"NetApp is getting too expensive."
"The pricing is good."
"When we bought NetApp, it was very reasonably priced. When you factor in the time savings, it's highly cost-effective."
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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%
Computer Software Company
14%
Real Estate/Law Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
69%
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IntelliFlash?
It is a bit cheaper than other products, 10% to 20% cheaper.
What needs improvement with IntelliFlash?
DDN IntelliFlash should improve in terms of sales. In future releases, I look forward to more features about AI and M...
What is your primary use case for IntelliFlash?
We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways. They have large scalability and use more th...
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
Tegile, IntelliFlash N-Series, IntelliFlash T-Series, IntelliFlash HD-Series
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Bank of Stockton, Barnsley College, Boyes Turner, Brigham Young University
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
Find out what your peers are saying about DDN IntelliFlash vs. NetApp AFF and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,989 professionals have used our research since 2012.