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Huawei OceanStor 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
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Huawei OceanStor
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp AFF
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
311
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Huawei OceanStor is 2.2%, down from 2.3% 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.
ChukwuemekaOnyemelukwe - PeerSpot reviewer
Uses a proprietary technology with simple interface and has easy deployment
If you are not generating a substantial amount of data, the available storage space might suffice, making scalability less of a concern. However, if your data generation increases and you require more storage, Huawei OceanStor offers solutions to expand your storage capacity. Expanding storage resources can involve additional costs and configuration efforts. Acquiring more storage solutions and ensuring their integration with your existing setup might require a significant investment of time and resources. While this process can be complex, it allows for seamless scalability as your data storage needs grow. I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.
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

"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."
"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."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"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."
"Its technical support team is helpful."
"The support is excellent."
"The most valuable feature is the availability."
"The performance and ease of management are the most valuable features."
"Stability: The product is designed to have always HA (High Availability) with redundant network and processors."
"Generally stable with good technical support."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The solution works well for non-critical applications that do not require a heavy workload. The tool's all features are valuable."
"I work on the infrastructure engineering side. I usually get to install NetApp appliances, and I like how easy the installation is. It seems to be easier than other technologies that we use."
"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 overall latency in our environment is very low because it's All Flash and we've got 10 Giga dedicated to the storage network"
"The most valuable features are deduplication and compression, so we get more out of our storage. The replication is also important."
"ActiveIQ is the most valuable feature. It's a central point for me to be able to kick into everything every day. I log in first thing and make sure there are no issues, and it helps me with my day-to-day."
"All of the features are good. With Flash, we have high-performing databases. Having that kind of performance has been valuable."
"I like the ability to snapshot, and the cloning features are valuable to us as well. I like that I can quickly and efficiently snapshot the data and move it to wherever I need to locally or in the cloud. Also, I know that when I take the snapshot that all of the data will be there and that it will be usable when I need to use it."
"Technical support has been okay."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."
"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"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."
"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."
"I would like to see more iterations and direct integration with other solutions."
"They should introduce a feature to Huawei OceanStor similar to a storage controller, allowing for seamless integration of additional storage modules."
"The security could be a bit more robust."
"In the future release, Huawei OceanStor should improve on what they already have. It is a good solution."
"I would like to see the next generation all-flash, which could be combined."
"Based on what we were quoted, the stated capacity was not a true reflection of the actual capacity. The data store ran out of space, and Huawei had to send a new unit."
"A concern with OceanStor is pricing. However, apart from that, there are no significant limitations or technical issues."
"Technical support could be more helpful."
"There are little things that need improvement. For example, if you are setting up a SnapMirror through the GUI, you are forced to change the destination name of the volume, and we like to keep the volume names the same."
"The response to basic problems could be faster. They usually respond fast when there are critical issues, but you always want it right now."
"In future releases, I would like to see the ability to automatically mount SMB shares and file systems."
"The graphical interface is still heavy and slow. Needs more improvement in this area."
"I just got through the session where it looks like they are going to support Oracle running on Linux with SnapCenter. That is one of the main things that we are hoping to get integrated."
"In terms of improvement, the support could be a little better."
"I would like to see a little more flexibility in customizing some of the SnapMirror stuff. We have been having a little trouble and, in the first round with tech support, they say, "Well, this is how we do it." It's not exactly throttled but it's limited in the number of connections it makes. We would like to be able to tweak that, to increase it a little bit, because we don't have half a dozen large areas that we are protecting, we have more like 40 or 50 areas. They run into each other a little bit and I don't want to spend time on them."
"Going forward, I would like improvement in the response latencies, capacity size, cache, and controller size."
 

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 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."
"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."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"The price of the license is quite low, so it's not something special or expensive."
"The pricing depends on the features the customer wants, such as storage, RAM, and processors, but in general, Huawei is much cheaper compared to Dell and Cisco."
"It's roughly affordable."
"Payment is determined by the amount of storage capacity required, and we have paid 50,000 euros for our usage."
"The price of the solution could be less expensive. However, there are not any licensing costs."
"Overall, the solution's pricing was cheaper."
"The tool's pricing is competitive and affordable. It has the best possible pricing that we can get from Huawei. The prices are fixed and there are no additional costs."
"Its price is affordable."
"One of the reasons we like this solution is that all of the features are included with the one license."
"The pricing is competitive when we compare it to other products."
"Its price is quite competitive, but there is still scope for better pricing."
"All features are included in the license, whereas with an EMC solution, you have to pay separately for extra terabytes."
"Comparing this solution to others it may seem expensive, but the price to performance for NetApp is greater."
"I am comfortable with the pricing, which is fair compared to others."
"We don't like the cost. We would like to buy more."
"NetApp AFF is an expensive product, although not compared to other vendors."
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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
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
67%
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 do you like most about Huawei OceanStor?
Huawei OceanStor has the capability of SSDs, high-performance disks, and higher disk support.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Huawei OceanStor?
Huawei OceanStor's pricing is very aggressive, making it highly competitive.
What needs improvement with Huawei OceanStor?
Huawei currently lacks a solution for high-performance AI, unlike other companies like DDN, WekaIO, or IBM BlueStore....
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
OceanStor Dorado V3 All-Flash Storage System, OceanStor 18000 V3 Series Storage Systems, OceanStor 6800 V3 Storage System
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Piraeus, Clinique Univeritaires Saint-Luc
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
Find out what your peers are saying about Huawei OceanStor vs. NetApp AFF and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.