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Pure Storage FlashArray vs VMware vSAN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (16th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (7th)
Pure Storage FlashArray
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
196
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
VMware vSAN
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
229
Ranking in other categories
HCI (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

All-Flash Storage
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Paul Pearson - PeerSpot reviewer
Works well, is easy to implement, and has upgrade analysis capabilities
We love the product. Pure Storage works really well. The CAT tool and also the ability to upgrade the unit's place grades are great. It allows for in-place control or upgrades. It's a very simple implementation. They have a good tool to analyze upgrades. The stability is good. Technical support has been excellent.
Alfadel Alharthy - PeerSpot reviewer
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
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 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 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."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"Compared to Unity, these arrays offer significant advantages, such as NVMe technology and higher IOPS."
"It is all-flash. This makes it a lot faster than the rest of what we have, as it is able to drive high I/O loads, which is big for us."
"We also use VMware integrations developed by Pure, their plugins in our vCenter environment. They help by allowing our non-technical operations teams to deploy new data stores and resize data stores without me having to involve myself all the time to do those simple tasks."
"One feature that's particularly valuable for our finance customers is Pure Storage's safe mode. It protects against ransomware attacks by taking snapshots. Our customers were very impressed with this capability. The data reduction is also impressive compared to other providers."
"This solution has helped my organization by cutting down on provisioning time. I used to have to provision a VM and it would take ten minutes. Now, it takes thirty seconds."
"The benefits were realized right away. Between the flash array and the compression, you can really see how good it is. Our databases run a lot better now."
"What I like most about this solution, is the speed, resiliency and scalability."
"Our storage phones home. It is smart and intelligent in that aspect, which has been huge for us. We don't have to be storage administrators."
"The scalability of the solution is most valuable."
"The most valuable feature is that it is software-defined storage. Also, being able to do maintenance on the fly is a real benefit: migrating off, updating, and then moving the guest back on to the nodes."
"Technical support has been fantastic. We always get answers quickly whenever we call."
"Provides good performance as well as integration with deployment tools."
"vSAN is integrated into VMware."
"To me, VMware is a leader of the visualizations. I think everyone just follow VMware."
"The solution is simple to use compared to other solutions, such as Hyperflex, VxRail, and Nutanix"
"The feature that I have found most valuable is that it is easy to deploy. It is easy to create and delete virtual servers. It is easy to create the load balancing and the clustering."
 

Cons

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."
"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."
"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 have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."
"We need better data deduplication."
"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."
"It is a bit expensive."
"The credentials on the iSCSI interface are only available to type in with the Chrome browser, and not with the Firefox browser."
"From a scalability perspective, it is a very small storage solution, so it's not very expandable."
"We've had it in place for about a year and a half and have had zero complaints, other than that box-to-box replication is not encrypted."
"I would like to see more cloud integration."
"I want to improve the overall service level of the solution."
"It is way in excess of what we need. If anything, we could see a bit more speed. I'm just comparing it with what some of my colleagues who are implementing their own systems do."
"I would like to be able to limit IOPS."
"VMware vSAN needs to improve its features because other solutions have more advanced features."
"I would like for the next release to be a bit cheaper."
"Improvements can be made with respect to scalability."
"I would like to see better performance graphs, maybe something that you can export outside to a different console, and maybe a little bit longer time period. The 18-hour maximum, or 24-hour maximum, is kind of short. Also, the hardware compatibility limitations are a little frustrating sometimes, but as everybody's starting to adopt vSAN more, you get more options for hardware."
"The pricing could be better when it comes to renewing the licenses."
"The architecture of vSAN is not good. vSAN works with objects, such as disks, and it causes problems with availability."
"I would love to see vSAN integrate Persistent Memory and NVDIMMs. I know they're supposed to be working on an elastic tier so that we don't have the issues with destaging from the cache to the capacity. Those are the things that I'm interested in."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"The product is expensive."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"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 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."
"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."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"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."
"While it comes with a higher price tag, this investment often translates to significant improvements in performance."
"While more expensive than NetApp, Pure Storage FlashArray offers superior performance that often justifies the higher cost and adds value overall."
"It's a good price point and it's a solid product for the price."
"We are finding the TCO of flash to be lower than SSD implementations."
"I think that the pricing is less expensive compared to other standard products in the market today. Even the support contract and maintenance services cost less when compared to market-leading products like EMC."
"There is an annual or perpetual license required for this solution."
"When I last looked, the prices were reasonable, and we could get an excellent array for about $60,000."
"Pure Storage is expensive. It comes with features, so you get what you pay for. It is expensive compared to our old storage systems, but from the amount of human effort that you have to pay to babysit a storage system, it reduces that. I don't know if the TCO is reduced, but it's not a concern for us."
"There is a license to use this solution and we pay approximately $30,000 annually. There were not any additional fees required other than the license. The solution is expensive."
"It could be cheaper."
"The licensing cost is high and should be taken into account."
"The vSAN licensing is not an inexpensive product. It does cost more than hypervisor."
"For a classical node plus storage solution, the price is higher."
"The product's price is not high. The tool is available at a normal price."
"The first 1-2 years of purchasing vSAN will be expensive. Thereafter, the longer you are running it, the more cost savings you will have."
"Clients have to pay for VMware vSAN licensing based on the number of CPUs. The purchases would be lifetime or perpetual, but you need to have support, e.g. the support is negotiated from one, two, three, or four years."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
34%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
51%
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 needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
After implementation, there are limitations, such as the number of paths, file systems, and replication options. It f...
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?
I would rate it a seven out of ten for pricing. It could be improved.
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: November 2024.
817,354 professionals have used our research since 2012.