Dell XtremIO vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays comparison

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #21 with an average rating of 8.3, while NetApp is ranked #26 with an average rating of 9.3. Dell Technologies holds a 1.1% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 82% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell XtremIO and NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are leading solutions in the all-flash storage market. Pricing and support feedback suggest Dell XtremIO has a slight edge, while the robust features of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays make it a compelling choice.

Features: Dell XtremIO is praised for its high performance, ease of management, and efficiency. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays stand out for speed, reliability, and comprehensive feature set. The difference lies in NetApp's broader feature range which appeals to users needing advanced functionalities.

Room for Improvement:Dell XtremIO users suggest enhancements in data reduction capabilities, scalability, and integration. NetApp EF-Series users point to improvements in integration options, simplification of management tasks, and customer service.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:Dell XtremIO users report a straightforward deployment process and responsive support. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are noted for their seamless integration into existing environments but receive mixed reviews regarding support responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI:Dell XtremIO users find good value relative to its price and report a satisfying ROI. NetApp EF-Series is seen as more expensive but justifiable due to superior performance and feature set. The distinction lies in the higher upfront costs for NetApp against the perceived long-term benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell XtremIO vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Dell XtremIO vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.7%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell XtremIO is 1.1%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Paul Pearson

Storage and Backup Architect at Concentrix

Works well, is easy to implement, and has upgrade analysis capabilities

We love the product. Pure Storage works really well. The CAT tool and also the ability to upgrade the unit's place grades are great. It allows for in-place control or upgrades. It's a very simple implementation. They have a good tool to analyze upgrades. The stability is good. Technical support has been excellent.

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Gouranga Maiti

Sr. Project Manager -IT at ITC Ltd

Suitable for high IOPS and helps get backup in ten minutes

We use Dell XtremIO for high IOPS. We get backup within 10 minutes. Initially, we faced numerous issues with our analytical systems. However, we saw performance improvement after the implementation of the solution. I like the tool's snapshot backup and flash storage features. Sometimes we…

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Tayo Olubanke

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."

"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."

"I use the tool for Oracle databases, Oracle virtual machines, and Oracle Linux databases. I'm on the storage side, not a database administrator."

"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."

"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The guaranteed sub-millisecond response time for a 4K block."

"Xtrem10's features are more simple to implement. The integration and interface are also good."

"Thin storage allocation"

"The performance is good, which is important."

"It has very good performance for an application which needs lower latency and a better response, for example, in microseconds."

"The speed is extremely valuable."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"XtremIO’s capability to run any workload without much in the way of design considerations makes this very easy to use and size."

More Dell XtremIO pros

"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."

"It provides multi-protocol, which is what gives the edge when it comes to big lineage PC workloads."

"The benefits are better up-time, better response time."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the performance of the database access."

"Rapid deployment, easy integration management and cloning of areas."

"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."

"Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market."

"The replication and mirroring features are very good."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pros

Cons

"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."

"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."

"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."

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

"The software layer has to improve."

"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."

"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."

"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"It needs a way to determine the deduplication of each LUN and what the impact would be if we were to move data from one LUN to another."

"In the next release, the solution could have better integration and if we can host assets on the cloud, such as NetApp has the NetApp volumes, which we can host on the cloud directly called NetApp CVO (cloud volume ONTAP). Dell EMC should come up with something purely on the cloud rather than manage services."

"The solution needs to be simplified. When you integrate your storage with other systems, could use a little bit of automation."

"Get rid of the Java aspect of the GUI console."

"Scalability could be better."

"It is very expensive to scale. You have to buy an additional system to extend from one disc, for instance. It is scalable, but extremely expensive to do so."

"We've encountered challenges in integrating other products with Dell Xtremio, as it tends to be more vendor-locked. This means we can't easily explore other solutions that might work alongside Dell."

"Sometimes we don't get an immediate response from the support team. The initial POC also took a lot of resources."

More Dell XtremIO cons

"We need a center related to NetApp in Egypt so that we can deal with them directly."

"This solution does not have any compression or deduplication."

"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."

"NetApp could improve the speed of the rebuilding rate."

"The management interface, while very reliable, it seems a little old now and could maybe use a little modernization."

"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."

"We have used IBM previously. We found that the storage from IBM was poor and we chose NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays because it can scale very easily."

"Things like the FlexClones, SnapVault, SnapMirror, all of that. Some of it's available on the EF series, but we like what we have in the FAS system."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."

"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 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."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"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."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"Licensing is approximately $200,000 per year."

"It is expensive if you need to increase scalability."

"There are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"It's not cheap, but it absolutely gets the job done. I don't have any real comment regarding licensing specifically."

"Don’t buy this array. You’re paying for loads of magic beans, since it’s mediocre at best for a platform in a rapidly growing field. Look instead at Pure Storage or something with variable block deduplication. You’ll end up spending less and getting a better product with actual support."

"This is the best flash array on the market for high-end workloads, so expect to pay for that. But the support subscription cost is fixed for seven years, which made it easier for us to plan on the maintenance costs."

"XtremIO is an all-flash array, which means it's a costly solution. When compared with general mid-range storage solutions, this is more expensive. As far as I know, there are no additional costs besides the license."

"You can get a two-year or three-year license for the tool. You can also opt for a perpetual-based licensing model, which can be renewed on a yearly or two-year basis."

More Dell XtremIO pricing and cost advice

"It's a lot cheaper than what the other vendors have for the same type of environment. It saves us money."

"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."

"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."

"One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to renew the license."

"NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is an expensive product."

"Price-wise, NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is costlier than Dell. You have to buy a lot of licenses separately."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user182013

Federal Civ/Intel Engineering Lead at Rubrik

May 1, 2015

Measuring Up: EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR

Leading up to EMC World 2015, IT Central Station asked how I would compare EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR. Until recently, the flash storage conversation in my organization and many others has centered on XtremIO and Pure Storage, the leaders of the all-flash array (AFA) space. To that end, I've written a…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

20%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

After implementation, there are limitations, such as the number of paths, file systems, and replication options. It f...

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell EMC XtremIO?

The feature I like most about Dell Xtremio is its hardware quality compared to other vendors. It's clear they're cont...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell XtremIO?

When purchased eight years ago, it was offered at a special price that was good and competitive. However, upgrading w...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell XtremIO?

When we upgraded the capacity from five to ten TB, the price of the disks was high. Dell explained that they are sell...

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 36% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 33% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 14% of the time

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 14% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 10% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 4% of the time

More Dell XtremIO Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 33% of the time

NetApp AFF vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 16% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 15% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 13% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 8% of the time

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

December 2024

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Buyer's Guide

Dell XtremIO

December 2024

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Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

December 2024

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays report

Download NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

Dell EMC XtremIO Flash, Dell EMC XtremIO X2, XtremIO, XtremIO X2

NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series

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Pure Storage

Video not available

Dell Technologies

NetApp

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Bring all-flash, scale-out storage to your enterprise applications with EMC XtremIO. Purpose-built for flash, XtremIO storage arrays are amazingly fast. Delivering high IOPS at less than 1 millisecond latency is just the start. EMC XtremIO helps you harness the power of flash storage by building in innovations like content-based data placement and dual-stage metadata.

The NetApp EF560 all-flash array is an all-SSD storage system for applications that demand extremely high levels of performance and reliability. Requiring just 2U of rack space, the EF560 all-flash array combines extreme IOPS, microsecond response times, and up to 12GBps of bandwidth with leading, enterprise-proven availability features.

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Raiffeisen Bank Bulgaria, Wentworth-Douglas Hospital

RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation

Buyer's Guide

Dell XtremIO vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

December 2024

Free Report: Dell XtremIO vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell XtremIO vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.

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