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NetApp AFF vs NetApp ASA comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
227
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp AFF
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
314
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (2nd)
NetApp ASA
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
21st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise SAN (6th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 7.4%, up from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF is 7.8%, down from 9.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp ASA is 1.6%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetApp AFF7.8%
Everpure FlashArray7.4%
NetApp ASA1.6%
Other83.2%
All-Flash Storage
 

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.
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Synergy Computers
Unified storage has delivered efficient AI analytics and low latency for critical workloads
There might be some lag or response time with respect to support cases, but even then I will rate it 8.5 out of 10. All of this is the same for all product ranges, whether E-series, NetApp AFF, or FAS series, because they are very efficient to respond. The only reason I rated it 8.5 is because the warehouse for spare parts, when a problem comes, a spare is needed to replace it, for example, a disk. In Pakistan, they have only one warehouse in Karachi. This warehouse manages all the problems when a problem comes. They ship the part based on the customer use case and customer service request. That is the only reason I rate it 8.5 because they have only one warehouse in Pakistan, which is in Karachi. For example, if a problem comes in Islamabad, it will take time to deliver the spare because the part will be shipped from Karachi to Islamabad, which will take around maybe a day. Other OEMs have their warehouses in Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi also. In terms of part replacement requirements, they are very efficient in that area because they have warehouses in multiple cities of Pakistan.
KS
Team Lead at kiran@ncrust.com
Virtualization platform has delivered consistent low-latency SAN storage and 24-7 data access
The stand-out feature for me is the SAN storage because of its ability to deliver consistent sub-millisecond latency, 100% availability, active-active paths, and no performance tuning headache. When maximum users connect at the same time, there is no latency experienced. The main impact of NetApp ASA on my organization is that my data is available 24/7. Whenever I have a requirement over the VPN or inside the LAN, I can access my data anytime and anywhere as per my need.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"FlashArray has many valuable features. It's very user-friendly and it has high availability, so there is comparatively less downtime. During maintenance, there is no shutdown procedure, so you can directly power off the Array and manage the shutdown process without any data loss, which is a unique feature. Managing replication and data migration is also very easy."
"This is a very good product at a very good price, with very good support."
"The availability and ease of use are the big features."
"Everpure FlashArray is probably not cheap storage, but it provides great performance, scalability, and everything a customer needs."
"Pure gives us better compression, it's easier to manage, a lot less hands-on."
"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."
"Cost, racial per terabyte, and speed is why we chose PureStorage. It was no brainer."
"The most valuable feature is replication."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"I like NetApp AFF's deduplication."
"The stability is excellent, it's highly stable, and we have never really had a failure since we put it in over two years ago."
"NetApp has been helpful and stable, and enabled us to buy capacity as needed, as well as help in quickly refreshing UAT/DEV environments as needed."
"Our organization has improved because this solution provides a Highly Available storage system with DR configurations, deployed across two data centers."
"We just did a refresh about six months ago to the A700s and we have been very happy with the performance of those boxes."
"The benefits of being on AFF are the phenomenal speed at which we're able to ingest data and index it, and the IOPS."
"From an IT perspective, providing that as a platform for these specific databases has made us seem like gods, in short."
"I love the SnapMirror and autonomous ransomware protection features."
"The main impact of NetApp ASA on my organization is that my data is available 24/7."
"Their dedupe functionality is probably the best in the industry. We also find their support model to be good. When we purchase something, we have a very good understanding of how long that product will be supported by them. That helps."
 

Cons

"I have been primarily working with storage and have not fully explored other areas, but there is some room for improvement when it comes to performance reporting."
"I would like FlashArray to add reports that help us forecast our predicted resource needs based on current usage."
"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."
"We would always like to see higher performance, and lower pricing is always better."
"In terms of the future, I have been excited by some of the copy data management stuff that they're talking about building into the environment. There are feature sets where I've done a lot of automation work. So, I am always looking forward to extensions of their API. They're also talking about a phone home centralized analytics database being used as a centralized management console with a list of new cloud features, but this doesn't seem finalized."
"I can't see where they can make anything better, unless, of course, they lower their prices even more."
"I would like to have an easy way to determine the cost per VM so that I can present a solution to our customers."
"Pure Storage will have issues with positioning in the near future since its a relatively new company. For now, customers need a PoC to trust using the solution, as it can't stand on its brand name alone. They need to improve Pure Storage's marketing."
"The price of the upgrading of the solution is high. I don't think it's cost-efficient for a lot of people."
"NetApp AFF could improve SAN storage because it feels as if it was not put together at the beginning, it functions as an afterthought. Additionally, the cloud features could be more mature."
"It's a little behind on security. It's starting to get into multi-factor authentication, they just started to introduce it but not for all products."
"FC and ATTO bridges are still needed for cross datacenter replication."
"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."
"I would like to see the All-Flash FAS support virtualization better. I find that lacking in some areas; application and for disaster recovery."
"I would like to see if they could move the virtual storage machines. They have integrated a DR, so you can back to your DR, but there's no automated way to failover and failback. It's all manual. I'd like to see it all automated."
"Customer service is one area of the product line where I would love to see improvement. I have had several vendor experiences with NetApp where I faced challenges in the initial call trying to navigate the requirements of the service level expectation. Their response could be better improved. However, the final result is great. It is just the initial support level where improvement would help to effectively solve problems."
"I'm handling pre-sales and post-sales. From a partner's point of view, the tools that I'm using to create the quote or do the sizing are very slow. The tools, such as hardware universe, fusion.netapp.com, and partnerhub.netapp.com, operate very slowly. These tools should be more efficient as they enter a hung state repeatedly."
"I would like to see more in terms of replication between storage classes. They provide different lines of storage. They have a lower class. They have a capacity class. They have their enterprise class. Currently, we have interoperability at the same plane with ONTAP, but we would like to see some more mix-and-match features."
"NetApp ASA is somewhat expensive, and I believe they should work on the pricing aspect."
"From a partner's point of view, the tools that I'm using to create the quote or do the sizing are very slow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"FlashArray is expensive, but the quality justifies the price."
"The cost has room for improvement."
"While it comes with a higher price tag, this investment often translates to significant improvements in performance."
"The pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray is reasonable."
"No storage device is cheap, but Pure Storage is fairly priced and offers what you pay for. You get all the licenses in the future when you purchase a license."
"The price-to-performance is good. I looked at Pure about three to four years back, but the price-to-performance wasn't right for us. Now, it's right."
"We have an Evergreen Storage subscription, which I think is a great feature."
"We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO)."
"Our space savings through dedupe and compression is over 50 percent, so we are saving. I think our 8080s has 20TBs. We are saving at least 10TBs and that's over 50 percent of the capacity that we're using."
"Other vendors may come in at a cheaper price point, but you will pay in the end with management costs and downtime."
"The pricing is not a lot considering what you get and it bundles hardware and licensing."
"I would like the pricing to be cheaper."
"It is pretty expensive compared to other solutions. I would give it a seven or eight out of 10 in price (where 10 is expensive) compared to similar solutions."
"We benefited from implementing all-flash by reducing our data center footprint. We took it from 30 racks to just over five. This is one of the biggest savings for us."
"The entry point for potential customers, who are looking at coming onboard for flash systems, it may be a bit expensive. It would be good if the price comes down."
"I looked at other vendors for other potential projects and thought NetApp's pricing was very competitive."
"It is pretty good. It is definitely cheaper than Dell EMC. It is cheaper than Pure. It is cheaper than VAST. It is definitely cheaper than HPE. The only one that is on par with NetApp's pricing for enterprise customers is IBM."
"It's more expensive than other storage vendors such as Dell, Pure Storage, HPE, Lenovo, etc. It provides the value, but some of the customers don't look at the value. They first look at the cost. It should be reduced by 20% to 30%."
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Comparison Review

it_user186357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect with 51-200 employees
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
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
22%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business69
Midsize Enterprise37
Large Enterprise157
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise242
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 needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I do not have any improvements at the moment; I like how it is. I have nothing to add about needed improvements.
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp ASA?
I am not much aware of the pricing of NetApp ASA, but I estimate a NetApp ASA system could cost several hundreds of t...
What needs improvement with NetApp ASA?
NetApp ASA is somewhat expensive, and I believe they should work on the pricing aspect. I understand that pricing can...
What is your primary use case for NetApp ASA?
NetApp ASA has three or four main use cases including mission-critical applications, SAN environments, block storage,...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp AFF vs. NetApp ASA and other solutions. Updated: May 2026.
899,052 professionals have used our research since 2012.