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Dell Unity XT vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800 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)
Dell Unity XT
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
194
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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)
 

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 Dell Unity XT is 7.8%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is 0.9%, down from 1.0% 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.
Syed Habib - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient data replication and fast IOPS have improved operational performance
Dell and a partner jointly implemented this solution in Auvink. We installed the Flash, which makes our IO operations fast and efficient. Replication is available, allowing us to replicate data simultaneously from one site to another. All-flash technology and vTXT enhance speed, and the IOPS are faster. The cache's IOPS are much better. Snapshots provide a unique feature for testing and make management more comfortable and easy. The platform is multi-supported and certification is more convenient and easy to manage.
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…

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."
"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."
"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."
"I use the tool for Oracle databases, Oracle virtual machines, and Oracle Linux databases. I'm on the storage side, not a database administrator."
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"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 FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"This product is perfect for small, and mid-range customers who need to pay less, but still, get enterprise-level capabilities."
"Via a click, we can deploy a data store or LUN to the ESX host. We can also deploy VVOLs to the ESX server."
"Initial setup is a simple process."
"VMware integration: Grants both the Storage and Virtual Administrator the ability to create and mount datastores, or even to check how much space each VM is consuming."
"We can put all the virtualized servers in one place, so our customers can share and manage the devices very easily."
"One of the things that I like the most about it is how they have changed the Unisphere GUI, and how it is now HTML5. It is so easy to use. Also, the array itself is so simple, easy to set up and easy to use, but it still has that great Dell EMC technology behind it."
"The UI itself is fantastic, and the ease of administration is far better than Unisphere or Navisphere ever were. It's very easy to manage. The fact that it has built-in APIs means our automation people can help us automate a lot of tasks, and that has been helpful. And, of course, it's really fast. Obviously, that doesn't hurt anything at all."
"It is easy to manage overall. It is all web-based. It has a an easy, nice dashboard. I receive emails if there are issues. When there are any updates, I receive emails. I can either do them on my own, but normally I schedule them with Dell EMC and they remote in, then it's done."
"Low latency is the most valuable feature."
"The product can be scaled vertically as well as horizontally."
"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."
"During the use cases of the solution, its reliability and suitability are the best."
"You can easily scale up, and scale-out."
"The most valuable features are stability and performance."
"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."
"We find the product to be very flexible."
 

Cons

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"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."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"The one thing that we would look at would be if they were to expand the file level features, just to give us a balance or a tier between it and Isilon options out there, for unstructured data."
"I miss storage groups. Now, if I have to add a LUN to a cluster, multiple host, I have to know which host is in that cluster. I have to write it down and that makes it hard. In VNX and earlier, I could simply put a LUN on a storage group and every host in the group had the LUN. This lack bothers me a lot because it takes a lot of time and mistakes are made. Sometimes, a Hyper-V host gets a VMware LUN and vice-versa. Not good."
"For the integration of the VPLEX function for Cross IDC structure, they should integrate the function into the SP controller."
"The price of this product can be more cost-effective."
"Scalability is not good. We have a Unity 300, now we have to do a data-in-place conversion for the next upgrade because only 150 slots are supported, not drives, only slots."
"It isn't easy to find trusted partners for the product. The solution has issues with mid-level storage and does not come with enterprise storage."
"In some countries, spare part availability is an issue for us."
"This product needs to have better integration with enterprise backup solutions and archiving devices."
"The initial setup should be easier, and more like a plug-and-play approach."
"The technical support has room for improvement."
"The initial setup is complex."
"The support can take a few days to have a response. However, the response that we do receive is very informative."
"The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better."
"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 cost of the solution is quite high. It would be ideal if they could adjust it so that it's a but less."
"The product’s UI could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"At the end of the day, the licensing cost is key, because every customer has a pain point, that the cost of each piece is high. So if they would bundle everything in a package, that is how the competitors are selling their footprint."
"The return on the investment was simply speeding up our entire vSphere stack, which allowed our developers and engineers to get their workloads done faster and simpler. We were experiencing VM snapshot times of 45 minutes to two or three hours, and it shrunk it down to under five minutes."
"There is not a license required for the use of the solution. We purchased a maintenance contract."
"For costing, you have to have a budget in mind because SANs can be fairly expensive and EMC offers a wide range of products."
"One of the most valuable features is its cost. It was inexpensive compared to other arrays that we were looking at."
"Its biggest valuable feature is its price point for the amount of storage and performance you get. It's a sweet spot. It's cheaper than the other SANs out there, but performs well enough. It fits that nice, middle-ground portfolio."
"Looking at it based on cost per gigabyte, it's certainly very effective."
"The flexibility is important. We still have a lot of customers that have a use case for non-flash, yet you can also build the flash version as well."
"Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive."
"Considering the requirements and the situation, I don't feel that this is an expensive product."
"There are licenses for the use of this solution, such as commercial licenses."
"The solution is expensive."
"I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
69%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Government
2%
Manufacturing Company
23%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Educational Organization
8%
 

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 the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
I saw that you have doubts about what you chose. I have a lot of experience with the constructor, honestly I can reco...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
They’re both great solutions and I’ve used both. EMC is being VERY aggressive on pricing which may be the undoing of...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
First of all the decision should be taken looking at similar products in terms of capacity and performance. I will sh...
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...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
EMC Unity, Dell EMC Unity
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Draper, Rio Grande Pacific, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Unity XT vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
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