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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
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
233
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp AFF
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
4th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
315
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (3rd)
NetApp ASA
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
22nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise SAN (5th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 6.4%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF is 6.8%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp ASA is 1.3%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray6.4%
NetApp AFF6.8%
NetApp ASA1.3%
Other85.5%
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

"Before we used Pure Storage it took 93 days of employees who run the database to back up and restore databases, and the scale of deployment basically went from several days to a few minutes."
"It's easy to use, and the maintenance upgrades to get free controllers work really well."
"Remote assist is a valuable feature that supports customers and engineers in troubleshooting and resolving issues, allowing for easy problem identification and repair."
"It's reduced our overhead management time on storage, since it is so simple to get in and just provision a volume, present it to the host, and then you are done."
"Pure Storage is seen as a visionary company with leading edge technology."
"This solution has helped my organization by cutting down on provisioning time. I used to have to provision a VM and it would take ten minutes. Now, it takes thirty seconds."
"We've been using FlashArray's snapshot for backups. Their replication across sites and response time are also excellent."
"The performance levels and the storage have improved my organization because we're a 95% virtualized environment and we're able to allocate resources as needed and manage our whole infrastructure that way."
"It has improved our applications' overall performance, and it has simplified our management of it."
"We have a unified storage to access the file and NAS. We can do all the things in the same solution. We do not need any other product or storage mix."
"We have a comprehensive solution that could accommodate anything. We can fly it earlier and get them in the air testing and prototyping much faster than they could have with other solutions."
"We tested it; it was a lot faster, and we expect a significant workload increase from our previous-generation platforms."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its simplicity. It is easy to use."
"Once it's operational, as I’ve mentioned, it's very intuitive and very easy to use."
"We have had issues before on our infrastructure where 20 to 30 percent of the people would come to us pointing the finger at the storage technology or storage back-end. That is now virtually zero."
"The most valuable feature of AFF is that it offers better visibility and control over performance, ensuring it meets customer needs effectively."
"I love the SnapMirror and autonomous ransomware protection features."
"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."
"The main impact of NetApp ASA on my organization is that my data is available 24/7."
 

Cons

"The GUI could improve, it could be more intuitive. There is hidden functionality."
"There was some complexity in the initial setup."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve in the area of cryptographic information in the consoles. The user-friendliness could improve. The Pure Storage FlashArray team should come and log into the system with their maintenance credentials and then pull out the information as evidence of cryptography."
"The initial setup was a little complex. We had some initial issues with the design and had to help correct some of the white papers for it, but it wasn't your standard use case."
"As partners, we should have the option to download the software, rather than have to go back through Pure to obtain it."
"I would rate this solution an eight because we have had outages. The commit times went very high in the database. The whole array went down so our customers were down for around eight hours. This was a very big outage which could have been our fault because we didn't do the upgrade in time."
"The GUI is simplistic and basic. I feel like it's explanatory, but not enough, it needs a little more to it."
"FlashArray's capacity for forecasting should be improved because it needs to be a bit more current."
"I would like to see more monitoring onboard, on the system, instead of having to throw another third-party system at it."
"Probably on the management side of things. It is very complex."
"Going forward, I would like more performance analytics on it, on the area itself, instead of using some other tool."
"With what we pay for a node-pair and the OnCommand Unified Manager, there ought to be at least a third of that integration in performance monitoring and alerting."
"I'm not impressed with their pricing."
"I think for us, improvement would probably be the changes in how the flash is actually used inside the system and how we manage the actual disk and stripes within the system."
"More performance features. We need our jobs to run faster."
"Even though that product has come to end of life, we're unhappy about that."
"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 areas of NetApp ASA that could be improved include features such as the active sync feature that allows a customer to write on either data center A or data center B."
"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."
"NetApp ASA is somewhat expensive, and I believe they should work on the pricing aspect."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would prefer that they lower their pricing."
"Pricing is very competitive, and it's better than other competitors."
"Its price is almost double than any other flash storage solution."
"We consume it as a service, and that's actually something we really like, or at least I really like from the technical perspective. That's because it means there is no hassle when we need to upgrade arrays to add capacity. We just interact directly with technical counterparts, and we say, "Hey, we're filling up," and they say, "All right, here's another data pack." They ship it in, and we install it. So, the as-a-service model has worked very well. Given the outstanding data reduction rates, it has improved our profitability because we're selling allocated volumes as part of the cloud service or recovering those costs from our tenants. It is very efficient, but that has offset the premium price. It started out that way, but over time, as we've added capacity, the price per gig has gone down a lot because we have a lot of it."
"It's a good price point and it's a solid product for the price."
"I would rate it a seven out of ten for pricing. It could be improved."
"Our Evergreen Storage subscription is supposed to be good when we go to upgrade."
"We implemented Pure Storage FlashArray nine years ago when it was new to the market and obtained it at a preferential price."
"NetApp AFF is an expensive solution."
"One of the reasons we like this solution is that all of the features are included with the one license."
"It can get a little expensive if you need to add more disks. The cost is a pain point for us, especially in terms of expansion."
"NetApp is getting too expensive."
"From an application standpoint, we have seen a lot of return investment on the speeds and responsiveness of the actual storage."
"It depends on how you look at things, but they are in a higher price range."
"NetApp AFF is somewhat pricey. If they weren't as pricey, that would be a big deal for us."
"Its price is quite competitive, but there is still scope for better pricing."
"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%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise161
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
When comparing cost, I find that the cost is either the same or slightly higher, but that is returned by the ease of ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only thing I think could be improved is price. The price is the main concern for our customers.
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: October 2026.
921,338 professionals have used our research since 2012.