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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
231
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp AFF
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
315
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 July 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 7.2%, up from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF is 7.6%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp ASA is 1.5%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray7.2%
NetApp AFF7.6%
NetApp ASA1.5%
Other83.7%
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

"Pure Storage has the right business model and will be around for a long time."
"This is the best all-flash storage array on the market."
"The compression rate is one of the most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray. Additionally, it is all-flash storage with excellent IOPS, and hardware failures are very less."
"I can personally state that the Pure Storage Flash Systems are the best built and Pure has the utmost professional customer care."
"The best features of Pure Storage FlashArray are its ease of use and user-friendly interface, and the performance allows all types of services to be visualized from a single point of interface, making it more robust and user-friendly."
"The performance and the ever-growing maintenance are the most valuable features of this solution."
"Now they are trying to add more and more applications because they're getting better performance and stability."
"Provides fast access and is user-friendly."
"We can go through and do an upgrade without worrying about any issues with the process"
"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."
"If you want a centralized storage platform that is bulletproof, NetApp is great."
"Customer service is perfect every time and technical support helps us every time."
"Supports file formatting, the main protocols, and the hot swapping of disks and features."
"This solution makes everything a lot faster, and the time to move data around, boot, and migrate VMs is much faster, which has helped improve performance for our enterprise applications, data analytics, and VMs."
"So far, my experience with ONTAP is really good; it is highly available, easy to use, easily scalable, easy to implement, and so far, we are really happy with it."
"NetApp AFF's flash technology offers great performance. This feature has been my go-to for managing data and ensuring speed and reliability."
"The main impact of NetApp ASA on my organization is that my data is available 24/7."
"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."
 

Cons

"With scalability, I have run into a little problem with our last upgrade. There were some undocumented limitations to the number of drives that our controller could run on. So, instead of putting in a new data pack as we had anticipated, we had to keep adding and removing to get up to the capacity that we needed to be. What should have been a one day process (or a few hours) turned into a month and a half process."
"Improved reporting on the deduplication and compression functionality would be beneficial."
"One improvement area is the eradication time delay."
"A year ago they promised that they would be able to read through the database encryption with more metric and they have not delivered on that patch, which is significant because it gives us back so much more storage room. We want to be able to read through the encryption."
"The system has dual controllers but does not have a high level of resiliency built-in."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve the recent file storage capabilities because it is lacking a lot of features."
"I would like to see active replication. I know that it's available now but I haven't tried it yet. I hope that it works."
"Self-backup is the only feature lacking in this solution."
"We have had issues with CIFS presentations and outages, so if that was removed, we could do seamless upgrades without affecting CIFS presentations. That would be an advantage. That's about the only improvement I can think of."
"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."
"Its technical support could be better."
"Our backup system, Commvault, has an amazing capacity to do compression and deduplication better than NetApp AFF by itself. If they can spend some time improving deduplication and compression, it would be great because it has been proven that some commercial features can do it."
"We have had trouble with restoring applications, and if there is more support for application-aware backups then that would be great."
"I would like to see more functionality with the external software, SnapCenter."
"The engine actually can't pull enough and it has caused a little issue here and there, because it's basically causing a race condition."
"Tech support is great with NetApp if you can get past Tier 1."
"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."
"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."
"From a partner's point of view, the tools that I'm using to create the quote or do the sizing are very slow."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They have a standardized fee; it's been the same price for 10 years straight. I am happy with the price — I think it's good."
"We feel that the pricing is fair and the licensing process was easy for both."
"Because of the SSD, it is cheaper because I am not purchasing so many disks."
"Pure Storage has not helped us to reduce our licensing costs."
"Pure is typically more expensive than everyone else. You get what you pay for, but I have lost deals to similar solutions because of pricing. They include everything, and that's another positive about Pure Storage. They aren't trying to nickel and dime their customers for different features. It is all included in one price. The license is by capacity, and the price depends on the capacity and the discount we're getting from the vendor. You get the SKU of the physical appliance, support, and maintenance, and that's it. You're licensed for whatever feature they offer. It is all rolled up into the price of the appliance."
"There is an annual or perpetual license required for this solution."
"The price of the solution is not expensive."
"We are finding the TCO of flash to be lower than SSD implementations."
"The pricing is not a lot considering what you get and it bundles hardware and licensing."
"Comparing this solution to others it may seem expensive, but the price to performance for NetApp is greater."
"There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost. The cost is very high compared to other devices."
"NetApp AFF is an expensive product, although not compared to other vendors."
"NetApps offers a lot of different options. Just take your time and work with the consulting teams. Lay out what your needs are to ensure you are purchasing what will help you be successful."
"All features are included in the license, whereas with an EMC solution, you have to pay separately for extra terabytes."
"With other options, you need to buy a couple of different products to achieve the same outcome."
"In addition to simplifying the management across a mix of solutions, AFF simplifies the cost. That was one of the main reasons we purchased AFF."
"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
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
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?
I have knowledge about the licensing part, which we obtained for around 10 years from the time of deployment, but I d...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...
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: June 2026.
903,807 professionals have used our research since 2012.