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NetApp AFF vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) 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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (16th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (7th)
NetApp AFF
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
310
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (2nd), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (2nd)
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
196
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (3rd), HCI (3rd), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

All-Flash Storage
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

SajithEruvangai - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable and feature-rich solution that meets our diverse storage needs effectively
We are incredibly satisfied with the product's performance and flexibility. The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes. The platform's robust features include excellent sustainability tracking, and a comprehensive dashboard offering insights into IOPS, bandwidth, performance, and virtual activities. This not only streamlines our operations but also provides a clear and detailed overview of our storage environment. Additionally, it has multiple controllers, letting us balance the load smoothly.
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.
Sudheer Narayanan - PeerSpot reviewer
Ability to seamlessly transition with click of a button means we have no downtime
Any single server or one-plus-one server is very difficult to manage if there is hardware failure. But with this solution, the transition is seamless because a 10-plus-one redundancy is built into the system. With the click of a button, we can migrate the services to other servers. We have never had any downtime and we are a 24/7 operation. Production has continued, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure also helps us to optimize power utilization and the rack space used in the data center, resulting in overall energy savings. These were immediate advantages because, eight to 10 years back, this was a new technology. We tried it with our less critical operations, and we slowly introduced more production-critical workloads. Also, we were using Active Directory and other SQL databases on individual servers. We were able to consolidate them into a single database. That helps with ease of operations and enables taking backups from a single place. We migrated all our standard database structures and we don't need a cluster mechanism because the cluster or failover mechanism is built into the Nutanix architecture.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."
"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."
"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."
"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."
"I use the tool for Oracle databases, Oracle virtual machines, and Oracle Linux databases. I'm on the storage side, not a database administrator."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."
"The valuable features are the fabric pool. We are taking our cold data and pumping it straight into an estuary bucket. Also, efficiency. We're getting about two and a half times upwards of data efficiency through compaction, compression, deduplication, and it's size. When we refreshed from two or three racks of spinning discs down into 5U of rack space, it not only saved us a whole heap of costs in our data center environment but also it's nice to be green. The power savings alone equated to be about 50 tons of CO2 a year that we no longer emit. It's a big game changer."
"NetApp's All-Flash storage solution has delivered the most value for our company. All-Flash is an excellent technology that delivers high performance for our workloads. We are happy with that."
"NetApp solutions are easy to maintain and upgrade."
"Using System Manager for green management or command line interface, we have a single point for managing the cluster. It is much easier to manage. It is very seamless. The product is robust and solid."
"The in-line dedupe, and the compaction saves us a lot of space because most of our AFFs house VMware VMDK files."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of NetApp AFF is the reputation of the company."
"We reduced our floor space by reducing 44 racks units to four rack units. It has helped us with our data center economies of scale. It reduces our support costs too, which is great."
"It's much easier and faster even when you want to create a server from a template or clone."
"The most valuable feature of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is its low cost, guaranteed to failover and failback with only a few clicks."
"The level of statistical performance data that it can confirm in real-time is extremely useful. I can see what my VM’s hosts and guests are doing from a single pane of glass and identify issues before they would otherwise become apparent."
"The most valuable feature is the one-click to update the firmware and software."
"Hyperconverged Infrastructure is the most valuable feature of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure."
"A great feature involves real-time hardware changes."
"It's easy to use and has a very smooth onboarding process."
"Nutanix does a superb job with technical support."
 

Cons

"It is on the expensive side."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"The software layer has to improve."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"One of the challenges we face with NetApp is identifying bottlenecks in the systems they integrate with."
"I would like to see an improvement in the high availability of the NFS and CIFS sharing during upgrade and patching; this would help to avoid downtime."
"I don't like the newest GUI. It needs more options. Some features have been removed. Oversight is not as good in the new GUI compared to the previous version. Though, it might be something that we just need to get used to."
"It would be very useful if we could do the NFS to CIFS file transfer, but it is not supported at this time."
"In future releases, I would like to see the ability to automatically mount SMB shares and file systems."
"I come tech support with difficulty because I installed NetApp for many years I know what to expect when I call. When I don't get their support tech that I'm expecting and I'm trying to get to the right one, it can get very frustrating for me personally, trying to all-flash push my way into the right person. NetApp has the right people, it's just a matter of getting to them."
"In terms of improvement, the support could be a little better."
"The quality of technical support has dwindled over time and needs to be improved."
"With some projects that we are deploying, there are errors that arise when adding nodes."
"One disadvantage of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is it doesn't support external storage. Connecting external SAN storage to Nutanix, it's not supported."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure can be improved in terms of the sizing of the solution."
"I think some of the tasks that must be done using CLI could be added to the web interface."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's LTS version needs to be more reliable."
"The reporting feature isn't very good."
"Setup can be a little difficult"
"We'd like to have more resource management."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"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."
"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"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."
"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."
"We would like it to be free."
"We have been able to utilize and leverage equipment which was purchased a decade ago up until this past year. So, we were running disk shells for 13 years and all we were doing was upgrading the filings and controllers, and using the same disk shells. Therefore, we were able to do something where we didn't have to invest that much. Recently, we had to upgrade all our disk shells, but it was a lot less because the technology had changed a lot since those times. It is faster now, and we have SSDs. We have larger drives that are 4TBs and 6TBs. Everything can condense so we are saving disk shell space and rack space. We are paying less now than we did at that time"
"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."
"I understand the cost is less than many other storages of same/similar performance benchmark."
"NetApp AFF is an expensive solution."
"I think the pricing and licensing are a little high, but compared to those of other storage vendors, it's within reason. After the three-year prepay, the extended warranty is a little expensive."
"The pricing is quite good in comparison with HPE SimpliVity, Nutanix Scale, and even traditional architecture."
"It is not cheap, but if you look at the return on investment and the total cost of ownership, it is worth the price."
"The license is quite clear to me. It's much clearer than what we had with our previous virtualization environment. The licensing is not complex to understand."
"The price is good but I think there is still room for improvement on the price."
"We just have a support license for Nutanix."
"The licensing costs are a bit expensive but when you compare the features, it's reasonable."
"Its licensing is fine. They provide the flexibility to choose from different options. You can go with the standard plan. You can go with the pro or platinum plan. Generally, our clients go with the pro licenses, but if you go for the platinum license, you get even more capabilities. Their starter license is also quite good."
"This product is expensive, but they do have discounts. At one point, I saw that they were giving a 70% or 80% discount, which is a good thing, but maybe they should have a more realistic price and then a 5% to 10% discount."
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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
16%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
64%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Educational Organization
35%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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?
Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive.
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 the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interfa...
How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?
Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from ...
Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interfa...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp AFF vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and other solutions. Updated: January 2023.
830,726 professionals have used our research since 2012.