Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Pure Storage FlashArray vs VMware vSAN comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (15th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Pure Storage FlashArray
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
187
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
VMware vSAN
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
229
Ranking in other categories
HCI (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

All-Flash Storage
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Paul Pearson - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 25, 2022
Works well, is easy to implement, and has upgrade analysis capabilities
Currently, it's our tier-one storage. We use it mostly for our Oracle databases It has drastically improved the performance of our high-end Oracle databases and allows us the ability to replication to a DR location with ease. We love the product. Pure Storage works really well.  The CAT tool and…
Alfadel Alharthy - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 20, 2022
Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable
When we set up the solution we did not require a lot of support from the teams. The good thing about the support is they can access and upgrade the framework and all other aspects. However, the account managers from Pure Storage are not communicating very well with us. We want to talk to them about what features should be used, use cases, best practices, and other technical discussions. Additionally, we would like to know about the new features, the introduction of new technology in the storage itself. It would be nice if they could communicate this information to us. The support is very good. They always call us for technical upgrades and firmware. If we have any issues they log in and we open a session for them, and they help us. The only issue is the time zone difference between our time zone and their time zone. I would rate the support from Pure Storage FlashArray a five out of five.
Lipaz Hessel - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 16, 2022
Expensive solution that requires professional services for installation and implementation
I'm still using a different solution. I only took two servers with vSAN to support one application that needs one feature that only VMware has. If not for that feature, I wouldn't touch VMware. Now, I'm looking at products like Nutanix, Silver Peak, Flexione, and FortiGate. For products that I choose, I don't need a specialist of that vendor. In VMware, I need a specialist in VMware. That's the issue I have with VMware. It's not like I can take any IT person, and they will know what to do. I need to make sure he will do the call, get the certificate and time to practice.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."
"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."
"The latency is good."
"I appreciate the performance."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"I use the tool for Oracle databases, Oracle virtual machines, and Oracle Linux databases. I'm on the storage side, not a database administrator."
"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"We have tons of capacity on it."
"The most important feature of any storage array is its reliability, measured by its uptime."
"We like the speed. It's very low latency. In virtualization, you can mask lots of problems, and even in code you can mask lots of problems, with low latency. It's just pure speed and low latency."
"The most valuable feature is how it simplifies the management of the SAN."
"The most valuable feature of the Pure Storage Flash Array is the blazing fast monitoring."
"It is an easy to use product for all of my team members."
"It simplifies the overall management. We don't have to worry about storage anymore."
"The support team is available all the time and they seem to know what they are doing."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"vSAN can help customers save on storage system costs, and also save on the human cost."
"The solution's unified administration is its most valuable aspect."
"The solution is stable."
"IOPS is comparatively best to run VDI solution."
"I think vSAN's stability is good. It's an underlying solution for both on-prem and in the cloud, especially the VMC on AWS stuff too. VMware has been around for a long time, so it's pretty stable."
"It's easy to use."
"The solution has high performance."
 

Cons

"The software layer has to improve."
"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."
"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"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."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"From a scalability perspective, it is a very small storage solution, so it's not very expandable."
"We haven't seen ROI yet."
"I had to contact customer support when a drive failed as I was doing a couple of OS upgrades."
"The internal garbage collection process has been fixed recently in some OS updates so it is more efficient but that could be just a little better."
"The time-to-market could be better at times, but I think that's true for all vendors of hardware."
"There are scenarios with very specific functionality around VMware integration particularly to do with the way we'd like to manage LUNs in VMware. The tools are pretty good but there's room for improvement there."
"I would like to migrate to the cloud in the future and know how that would actually work with this product."
"I would like to see support for NVMe, end-to-end."
"VMware vSAN needs to improve its features because other solutions have more advanced features."
"It would be ideal if the solution offered some intelligent monitoring."
"We often run out of space but we have enough capacity for memory and CPU. It's difficult to find the balance between storage and memory CPU."
"There is a lot that VMware could improve from a marketing perspective. The cloud is still new for many people, so extending storage should be effortless. It shouldn't be so complicated to extend the storage so workloads can access it no matter where they go."
"The UI falls short compared to other solutions. It needs some development to make it more user-friendly."
"The pricing model is sometimes a challenge for us because their licenses are very costly."
"The interface is a little complicated, it could be simplified with more graphical gadgets. We have many servers, and the built-in functions, such as rate configuration, are a bit complex."
"I would like to see more support for applications. I think currently it only supports applications between two vSAN clusters."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"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."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"The product is expensive."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"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."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"There is always room for negotiation."
"All storage is expensive so any price improvement would help."
"The price was more favorable than Dell EMC."
"The license for Pure Storage FlashArray includes the support and there are no additional payments that are needed. This is not an inexpensive solution, you need to understand the value of your data before you use a backup solution."
"While more expensive than NetApp, Pure Storage FlashArray offers superior performance that often justifies the higher cost and adds value overall."
"It is cheaper than NetApp."
"We have 16 or 18 arrays. We like to do the three-year support model so that we get Evergreen and therefore, we get free upgrades. We pay around more than 1.5 million dollars."
"Cost-wise, I imagine that the product's price would probably give you a nosebleed if you were a younger company."
"The solution requires a license. The payment is on a yearly basis and It is not overly expensive."
"It is not a subscription model. It is a purchase model, but it is very important that you also buy technical support from VMware. This is probably the only disadvantage of vSAN. It depends on the use case, but it can be very expensive."
"In comparison with other solutions, such as HP or Cisco, I find the solution to be quite pricey."
"The product's price is not high. The tool is available at a normal price."
"What made us go with this solution was price point. When you can utilize existing storage infrastructure, and not have to continually purchase new SAN products out there that are going up in price as time goes by, then it's a wonderful thing."
"We have increased our user productivity."
"If you compare the price of VMware vSAN with other players like Nutanix and Cisco, its price is good, but could still have some improvement."
"The vSAN is somewhat expensive to license."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.
814,325 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
33%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
50%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
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 se...
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems.
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 do you like most about Pure Storage FlashArray?
We consume less physical storage because of the solution’s deduplication and compression.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
We implemented Pure Storage FlashArray nine years ago when it was new to the market and obtained it at a preferential...
What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an e...
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...
How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?
HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We resea...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
No data available
vSAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Pure Storage and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: September 2024.
814,325 professionals have used our research since 2012.