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 #19 with an average rating of 8.5, while SolidFire is ranked #23 with an average rating of 8.2. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 holds a 1.0% 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.

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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 February 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.7%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is 1.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolidFire is 0.2%, down from 0.3% 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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."

"The solution is scalable."

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

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

"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 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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"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."

"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."

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

"The product can be scaled vertically as well as horizontally."

"Low latency is the most valuable feature."

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

"The most valuable features are stability and performance."

"The storage features are valuable."

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 pros

"I would say in terms of architecture and in terms of functionality, the product is quite good."

"Greater IOPS, speed, it's all-flash. So seeing that everything is going to all-flash, all SSDs, SolidFire fits right in there with the emerging trend in IT."

"The scalability and being able to implement it quickly."

"Templates are already predefined for it. If you're coding it up, it will take two days. You can pick up a template right there from the API, and it just works for you. Implementation done in 10 minutes."

"The quality of service for minimum iOS, to maximum iOS in a multi-terminal environment is very powerful. The SQL service feature is the best part of SolidFire."

"Overall performance of the solution."

"SolidFire provides seamless performance across your storage system when you need to scale up. Other storage systems do not do that."

"It's a very compact device. For a medium-sized business, it's very helpful because the device is efficient and very fast."

More SolidFire pros

Cons

"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."

"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."

"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."

"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."

"We need better data deduplication."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The initial setup is complex."

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

"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."

"Stability is an area with a certain shortcoming where the solution needs to improve"

"The cost of the solution is quite high. It would be ideal if they could adjust it so that it's a but less."

"The technical support has room for improvement."

"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."

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 cons

"I think there is room for improvement needed with its storage capability. A bigger node is needed."

"For example, the ease of use with the reporting. Right now it's not impossible, but you have to know Sequel. It's a little time consuming to get those customized reports in there."

"It's a very good Windows-type solution. But we do a lot of legacy systems and the like. So it's getting that incorporated into it that would help us."

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

"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."

"So feature-wise, I would say more reporting tools that could be merged into it."

"The scalability of HCI or SolidFire as such isn't a concern, but when you compare it to PowerMax or NetApp AFF series devices, scalability is a concern because it's only the drives that are connected to the nodes. We don't have any shelf connectivity."

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

More SolidFire cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

"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."

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"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."

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."

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."

"The solution is expensive."

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

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

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

22%

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

36%

Computer Software Company

19%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Real Estate/Law Firm

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?

Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...

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

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 33% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

NetApp ASA vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 32% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 20% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 18% 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 9% of the time

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 Competitors

NetApp AFF vs SolidFire

Compared 100% of the time

More SolidFire Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

February 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

February 2025

Download NetApp NVMe AFF A800 product report

Buyer's Guide

SolidFire

January 2025

Download SolidFire product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

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.

Pure Storage

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.

NetApp

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.

NetApp

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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