NetApp NVMe AFF A800 vs SolidFire comparison

NetApp NVMe AFF A800 and SolidFire are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is ranked #18 with an average rating of 8.5, while SolidFire is ranked #22 with an average rating of 8.2. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 holds a 1.1% mindshare in AFS, compared to SolidFire’s 0.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of NetApp NVMe AFF A800 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of SolidFire users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

SolidFire and NetApp NVMe AFF A800 are two competitive storage solutions. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 has the upper hand due to its advanced features and higher user satisfaction.

Features: SolidFire is recognized for its scalable architecture, consistent performance, and lower investment costs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is noted for exceptional speed, advanced data protection features, and feature richness.

Room for Improvement: SolidFire may enhance its analytics capabilities, integration options, and management tools. Users of NetApp NVMe AFF A800 suggest better management tools, enhanced support documentation, and simplified deployment processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolidFire is known for its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. NetApp NVMe AFF A800, though more complex to deploy, compensates with excellent support services.

Pricing and ROI: SolidFire offers competitive pricing and good ROI, making it attractive to budget buyers. NetApp NVMe AFF A800, although more expensive, is seen as worth the investment for its high performance and advanced features, providing better long-term value.

To learn more, read our detailed NetApp NVMe AFF A800 vs. SolidFire Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

NetApp NVMe AFF A800 vs. SolidFire

January 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolidFire is 0.2%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

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.

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Tanveer Rahman

Chief Technical Office at Novotel Ltd.

A scalable solution that serves as a storage for the cloud services opted by organizations

My company uses NetApp NVMe AFF A800 as storage for our cloud The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O. The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better. I don't expect to see additional…

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Ramil Cerrada

Solution lead at Globe Mobile

A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance

The most significant benefit lies in its exceptional performance, driven by its Flash-based architecture. This enhances routing speed and, consequently, database performance. The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results are essential.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."

"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."

"The solution is scalable."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"During the use cases of the solution, its reliability and suitability are the best."

"We find the product to be very flexible."

"Over the eight years, we've been using NetApp with ONTAP, we've never lost a bit of data, and we've only experienced a few minutes of downtime in that entire time."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O."

"You can easily scale up, and scale-out."

"NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is easier to use than some other solutions and the UI is very good to use for day-to-day activities. Overall, the solution has good technology."

"Low latency is the most valuable feature."

"The storage features are valuable."

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its scalability."

"SolidFire has seamless performance for the nodes and extensions. I also like the tool’s scalability. The product’s performance does not get affected when we scale either up or down. This is not the case with other products."

"We can just buy them, scale them as we need on demand, and we don't have to spend so many front end cycles on designing the architecture."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"Overall performance of the solution."

"The square footage for doing development is at a premium when dealing with government networks. To be able to put a lot of IOPS in a lot of high-speed performing drives in a very small location which requires very little HVAC with very little power, it is very valuable to us."

"Individual settings you can put on each individual volume, if you want to do that."

"The dashboard is such that you don't need to be a storage expert to administer it."

More SolidFire pros

Cons

"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."

"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."

"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."

"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The initial setup should be easier, and more like a plug-and-play approach."

"The product’s UI could be better."

"The support can take a few days to have a response. However, the response that we do receive is very informative."

"Sometimes, it takes a while to get somebody competent on the other end of the line. They do have engineers in multiple time zones around the world. However, their level-one support is not always the best."

"The technical support has room for improvement."

"The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better."

"The initial setup is complex."

"Increasing the RAM, and including physical cords would be beneficial."

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 cons

"One of the challenges we faced while using SolidFire was that the product line that we were using in our company was discontinued."

"We are looking for, potentially, on the Active IQ reporting side, to do reporting based on the datastore. Right now, I can report on the whole SolidFire, or I can report on just a certain datastore or a volume. I'd like to take all of my VDI infrastructure, which as an example would be multiple datastores."

"It would be good to provide administrative access at the root level to be able to do things with the system, if need be."

"Though it is a stable solution, its users may face some security issues at times...The security provided by the solution is one area that can be improved."

"This solution would be improved if it were made to be more compatible with other products."

"They could do a file-based NAS: SolidFire NAS-based. It's probably not its niche, but that is our direction, not to use block, and it's block. Solid state block is what it is."

"They could make the mNode more user-friendly. Now you need to configure and add nodes by CLI and it’s not really easy to manage. If they created a web interface to do the management of the mNode, that would be great!."

"We had some false positives, power supplies failing, and that's really been about it. We had a couple of glitches during some upgrade processes but nothing that was really concerning to us."

More SolidFire cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"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."

"The product is expensive."

"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."

"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."

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"Considering the requirements and the situation, I don't feel that this is an expensive product."

"I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten."

"There are licenses for the use of this solution, such as commercial licenses."

"The solution is expensive."

"Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive."

"It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for what you get."

"We would probably use SolidFire more, except we're getting more bang for our buck with our purchases of ONTAP right now, and the deal we made with NetApp, so it's more of just a cost decision"

"The price of this solution is more expensive than others."

"Based on what I heard from other people, its price was on the higher side."

"On a scale where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the solution between three and four. It is an expensive solution."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

20%

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

35%

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Healthcare Company

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive.

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp NVMe AFF A800?

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp NVMe AFF A800?

Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp NVMe AFF A800?

The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better. I don't expect to s...

See all answers

What do you like most about SolidFire?

The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance w...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolidFire?

It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay fo...

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolidFire?

There is room for improvement with a focus on creating a centralized storage system, functioning similar to AWS. This...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 38% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

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NetApp ASA vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 29% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 18% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 16% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 13% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 8% of the time

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 Competitors

NetApp AFF vs SolidFire

Compared 50% of the time

VMware vSAN vs SolidFire

Compared 26% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs SolidFire

Compared 24% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

January 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

January 2025

Download NetApp NVMe AFF A800 product report

Buyer's Guide

SolidFire

December 2024

Download SolidFire product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

No data available

Learn More

Pure Storage

NetApp

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Your data is a gold mine. Get the most out of it - faster - with AFF A800. Designed for NVMe media, further accelerated with NVMe/FC connectivity to the host, AFF A800 all-flash systems deliver an incredible sub-200 microsecond latency. Providing more than 11.4M IOPS and 300GB/s throughput in a single cluster, AFF A800 redefines the limit of what’s possible with artificial intelligence and deep learning.

SolidFire delivers all five core elements needed to deliver newfound storage agility to your next generation data center and beyond. With SolidFire you can deploy new applications and capabilities faster, provide more agile and scalable infrastructure, increase application performance and predictability, enable automation and end-user self-service and raise operational efficiency and reduce cost.

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

California Public Utilities Commission, RFA, 1&1, Ultimate Software , Endicia, ezVerify, MercadoLibre, Sungard Availability Services, ServInt, Elastx, Hosted Network, Colt, Crucial, iWeb, Datapipe, Databarracks

Buyer's Guide

NetApp NVMe AFF A800 vs. SolidFire

January 2025

Free Report: NetApp NVMe AFF A800 vs. SolidFire

Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp NVMe AFF A800 vs. SolidFire and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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