NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Reviews

It's quick. That was our big requirement, it had to be fast enough that there's no latency in our applications between when the end users are logging in through Citrix, and then those servers all talk back to our back-end servers. There can't be any major latency be it disk I/O or network I/O. So, it's all pretty quick.

It's pretty easy. If you ever have to add another target, it's pretty easy to go through, you just add a new one, map the drives out to our ESXi host, and then we're all set and good.

I'm not too hands-on with it, so I don't have any major input on things it needs or things it should have. As long as its functionality is there for me to use, as somebody just to use the storage on it, that's all I need it for. I'm very simple.

It hasn't gone down. We have no issues. I'm not their storage admin, so he'd probably know a little bit more about it, but we haven't experienced any major issues that I'm aware of.

We haven't had the use for needing to scale it up as we're going, so it's just kind of been as it is.

I think we used the professional services for initial deployment, and then we've gone along with it. I don't think we've used tech support for that. We've used it for our NetApp shelf that we've got; we sometimes run into some issues. But not for this thing.

I don't think we were previously using a different solution. Our business was finally letting us spend some money on some good hardware and we decided to take a chance, I guess.

I actually wasn't involved in that process, so I don't know the answer to that.

Our use case is both corporate storage and for all of our datacenter and back-end enterprise applications. We store it all on the flash, so it's quick.

We use it for multiple apps. J.D. Edwards, so it's our accounting software, and then all of our BI business intelligence is sitting on there. Those are the major ones. We'll see, we might be getting HCI soon so that might change, put some more on there. Mostly just our big I/O.

For us the most important criteria when selecting a vendor: oftentimes it's reviews. Support is critical. Ease of use isn't so much an issue. Usually we just look at the feature set and see if it coincides with what we need, what we require, and then we pick whatever most closely fits that.

In terms of advice to a colleague looking at this type of solution I would recommend this one. It depends on the size of the company. Obviously to a small, medium size business, you're probably not going to recommend it because it's probably overkill.

When I say overkill, I mean it's probably way more than a smaller or a start-up company would need. They're not gonna have that much of a requirement for that kind of speed, that quick. I'd say for small, medium, unless they have deep pockets, I don't recommend it. They can probably get something comparable that more fits their budget. Once you start hitting a certain threshold, you're definitely going to have to start investing some money in IT to make sure it's stable and stays up and you have no issues.

I usually run a POC for our customers.

The solution is very good. It offers very good performance, and very good data services to customers. 

The ONTAP is excellent. 

SnapMirror is very useful. It allows the customer to be able to see the entire relationship. It's one of the best features of the product.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

For the most part, the solution is stable.

The technical support has been pretty good for the most part.

The solution should really build out a more hyper-converged product. In Indonesia, there are many competitors for hyper-converged products, such as Nutanix and VxRail from Dell. Those products in particular are so strong. They need to improve the NetApp for hyper-converged solutions. Whereas, NetApp for storage is still pretty strong in Indonesia.

The dashboard could be simplified. There are many, many features on NetApp, and they could be combined onto one centralized dashboard for ease of use and access.

The stability so far has been very good. It's a reliable solution. For AFF, I still have not noticed any bugs, for example.

We mostly deal with medium-sized organizations.

When we have an issue we still cannot open a ticket yet as we are working when the customer has not yet sent an IPO, and so we cannot open a ticket. Typically, we ask for help from NetApp Southeast Asia. They are helpful. We request via email, and they always tend to help us.

The setup process is okay for the common line installation. I'm familiar with the process, so it is okay.

When we reach an issue in customer, it can take a long time. However, when there's no issue in the customer environment, we can set up it very fast.

In terms of the cost, I do not handle the price or the payments at all. I can't speak to how much the solution costs or what the licensing structure is like.

I'm working as pre-sales for NetApp. I help the NetApp team to test the POC for the customer. My company is a distributor of NetApp in Indonesia.

We might not use the latest version of the solution. We use the AFF Series and the C Series.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We're mostly quite satisfied with the solution so far.

We use NetApp for storage.

The solution allows us to segregate one storage unit from another.

Being able to partition different virtual volumes of storage is really valuable for us. It is pretty simple to manage.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any improvements other than perhaps better integration with some of our Cisco products.

The solution is pretty stable. We haven't had many issues with it.

I am not very familiar with how well it scales. Ever since I started it's been the same so we haven't really grown into it.

I never had to use their technical support, so I don't have any opinion about it.

I would probably switch to one of our new HyperFlex environments, which includes everything that we need. Right now with NetApp, we have to manage the storage and computer networking separately. With the HyperFlex solution, we could manage all three components in one place: storage, computing, and networking. That would be much easier.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward.

The more you can make it integrate into one solution, the better it is. It is less of a headache than having to configure three or four different things. One solution and one GUI is just the way to go.

I would rate the solution about seven out of ten. It would be closer to ten if it supported integration with other products, not just Cisco.

The stability, speed, and reliability are the solution's best features. The information is also very secure.

The user interface is very intuitive.

For us, in our country, the solution is a bit expensive. They should try to work on a better pricing model for our market.

NetApp could improve the speed of the rebuilding rate.

The solution is very stable.

I'm satisfied with technical support. I've called them several times and they were very good.  

The initial setup was very easy. Deployment only took one or two days of light work.

We are using the on-premises deployment model.

I would recommend this product for high-speed database applications.

I would rate the solution nine out of ten.

• Performance
• Reliability

The primary use case for our EF-series system is High Performance Computing (HPC) big data analysis. The AF system is dedicated to multiple applications.

• It provides multi-protocol, which is what gives the edge when it comes to big lineage PC workloads.
• It also gives you a very good throughput using the controllers.
• It is a pretty stable product; it never fails.

Our file system sitting on a controller.

They could improve overall scalability through performance. Denser capacity, which is doable, it is what the competition is doing.

Stability is excellent.

Scalability is very good.

Their technical support is excellent.

I was involved in the initial setup. It was straightforward.

Go for NetApp. It has the better stability.

The product allows us to configure and manage the services we choose to provide and to offer the service to the customers. In our organization, there are at least ten people using this solution to service many customers. This solution is dependable for us and our clients and that is what we needed to have.

The most valuable features are those that involve the replication process and mirroring. These are very valuable for safeguarding data.

The product might be improved with additional features for encryption. I think they do not do enough with encryption and that would make it more flexible and useful.

I would also like to features that better support the product implementation with cloud solutions. If the problem we need to resolve is with cloud solutions, the product is not so easy compared to other products for easily integrating the cloud data. A cloud solution is important to implement.

The stability of the solution is quite good. We do not have problems with the stability.

The EF-Series is not the most scalable solution. However, I think it is a good compromise considering the features and the caliber of the solution for this type of model and how we use it.

The support for the product is good. They are quick in the response and they are able to give us the correct person to resolve the issue that we are having. These are the most important things to look at when evaluating technical support. Because we have these two points we can evaluate the technical support as good. The response time is important. But the time and the skill they have to resolve the problem together make a difference.

The setup was quite complex and required assistance.

We installed the solution with the assistance of a consultant. That is mostly because we found that it is complex.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. It has various small flaws like not being very scalable, difficult installation, lacking good encryption and better cloud support. However, we use it for what it is currently designed to do. From one to ten, I would say it earns a seven for the scalability and a seven for the stability. These things hurt the other things it does well.

We are a tech services company and this is one of the solutions that we provide for our clients. We also use this ourselves.

Personally, we use this as a unified SAN solution. Our clients use it for CCTV and media applications. For example, one of our clients uses this to handle video data for game development. Depending on the customer and their requirements, we will configure an all-flash storage solution for them.

The capacity is very good and better than in past models.

The management software is very good. It supports reporting and different policies that are useful.

The price of the All Flash solution is very high.

I have been working with the NetApp All Flash Arrays for the past two and a half years. In total, I have been working with NetApp for almost six years.

The All Flash Array is stable and highly available.

This solution is scalable and you can just add more storage.

We are satisfied with the NetApp technical support.

The initial setup is simple. Compared to solutions in the past, it is very simple.

I have done three All Flash deployments with the help of my team for different clients.

This is an enterprise-level solution and the costs are very high. Adding more capacity will increase the cost.

NetApp All Flash is a system that I recommend for a rapid storage solution. It is good for organizations such as banks and media companies.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.