Pure Storage FlashArray Reviews

Our primary use case for Pure Storage is for disaster recovery.

We use AWS for our cloud provider.

It's fast because it's Flash storage so the IT team doesn't have to worry about it.

Besides virtualization and the benefits associated with that, we're a Workspace ONE customer, we're going to be starting that deployment Q4 of this year and we're looking forward to improving the patient experience with the doctors and the rest of the medical staff.

We are delivering a better experience for doctors and the other staff that deliver desirable outcomes. Again, it's easy on the IT staff. It's important to have infrastructure that you can rely on and not have to worry about failing.

We use SRM for VMware integration. The failovers with SRM are fantastic. It's fast and reliable. It just works, which is sometimes difficult to achieve.

The white glove customer service that I get is their greatest value. They even do the firmware upgrades for me. I don't have to worry about it.

The capability from Pure as far as sharing out files and things of that nature is a little bit lacking. However, I know it's coming so I'm not upset that it doesn't exist yet.

Their stability is second to none.

I'm confident it will grow as the hospital grows.

When I started at my current employer, our SAN was eight years old and out of support. It was very urgent that we replaced it immediately.

The initial setup was straightforward. Plug it in, then they show up to do the firmware upgrade. We connected the fiber channel, we put it on the network and within two hours we were moving workloads over.

We bought it from a reseller but we did the installation and design ourselves in-house.

We have received a return on our investment.

I have used NetApp, IBM, and EMC XtremIO in the past. We selected Pure because of its reputation. We also considered vSAN, but we ultimately went with Pure because of the ability to do things that vSAN couldn't do at the time. It has since changed. I don't know if that would change my mind about going with Pure, but I don't regret the decision.

Depending on their EMR, Pure is certified to work with many vendors including EPIC and MEDITECH, and they're a fantastic partner. Even from pre-sale to post-sales, I'm always in contact with the folks at VMware and Pure. They address any issues, problems, or questions I have. Their ability to help is endless.

I would rate this solution as nine out of ten. When the file services are available on Pure, it will absolutely be a ten.

The first year, we started out with one or five terabytes and it took what was 20 terabytes of storage down to less than one terabyte. Then we added another one and I think the total storage is five terabytes now.

The UI is pretty good.

It's absolutely a stable product.

It's scalable. We started with a very small storage array and now we're in a much larger one. I think we're up to 40 terabytes.

We only use tech support infrequently. We don't need to call them. It's easy to use, straightforward. Once it's set up, it does what we need it to do.

Price is about the only thing that's wrong with it. A little bit better pricing would be great. The client environment for a non-profit 501C3 organization makes it much harder for us to come up with the dollars and to cover the increased cost of hardware support, but we do like the way the product runs. It's perfect for us.

I would definitely recommend this product to a colleague because of what it can do. I've already done that. I've already referenced several other nonprofits, human service organizations, and long-term care facilities. We've spoken highly of Pure. For an organization, it can take storage from 40 terabytes down to five terabytes. It's excellent.

Our user base consists of 3,000 people but it takes just one person to manage it - ease of use.

Pure gives us better compression, it's easier to manage, a lot less hands-on, and the biggest selling point for me was the replacement of the hardware, the controllers, without any major expense to the clinic.

I don't deal with the day-to-day management of it. I'm sure that, from a technical perspective, the ones who manage it would be able to tell about you something that needs improvement. From my perspective of the acquisition and ongoing support, I don't see any.

It's a stable product. 

It's scalable. We've grown the product two or three times since we got it. We've actually purchased two more storage arrays since then that are not used for Epic, so we're expanding it. We'll be using this for many years in the future.

Tech support is helpful when needed.

We had multiple platforms beforehand. We had HPE, IBM. 

To me, the installation is easy. I'm not the one who put it together, their techs came out and helped us. I don't remember anything momentous about it.

I'm good with the licensing. Of course, pricing can always be less. That's standard business. It's actually not a bad pricing model, considering I don't have to rip-and-replace. That's huge for me.

I would recommend this product to colleagues in the same field.

It makes life easier for me.

I rate the product at nine out of ten. We're very happy with it. We purchased the product for our Epic implementation. I had such minimal issues with it. Ten out of ten is a stretch, but it's pretty close. We're pretty happy.

Our primary use case is a big bucket of storage for VMware. We run our virtual machines mostly to make sure that we have our SQL databases sitting on Pure Storage, because it's the fastest storage which we have available.

It is easy to manage. You don't have to have the same people who used to manage the Dell EMC arrays because the solution is more intuitive.

I like the fact that, by default, we encrypt at REST. So, with database encryption, we no longer have to layer it using Transparent Data Encryption, we can use the native storage. This helps lessen the performance impact and simplify configuration.

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 are going to start using it as a filer. In January, we're going to migrate away from NetApp and use Pure Storage as file service. 

What is interesting, because we're moving mostly to the cloud, Pure Storage may be the one storage appliance which will stay after we are done with our migration.

Stability has been great. We just put in a new data pack recently. One drive failed, but other than that, it was very stable. I haven't seen a whole lot of problems. Also, when it comes to upgrading shelves and the evacuation process, which sound a lot scarier than they are, everything has gone smoothly. I am very happy with how it works.

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.

I contact technical support from time to time. They have been pretty good. I have the mobile phone for one of the tech support guys, so I call him. He usually gets the ground troops rallied if need be, so the support has been good.

I wasn't part of the initial setup.

We used a reseller for the deployment: Bridge Data. They provided good expertise and timely services, so we were happy with them.

We get about a 3.3 data reduction, which is good. That is not the total reduction, just dedupe and compression.

I would give Pure Storage a high recommendation. Go with Pure (or a flasher rate which is similar) because of the ease of management and performance. It makes life a lot easier, especially if you're a smaller shop it could be prohibitive to have a storage engineer on staff. So, get a systems engineer who can do storage. This is more common with Pure Storage, then with Dell EMC.

I have not used the predictive performance analytics all that much.

I really like the end-to-end VM monitoring. I will be putting that on pretty soon.

We use this solution for storage of critical data and for storage of replicated backups. We use Zerto replication software. We write all of those backups to Pure Storage and then we use those in our disaster recovery scenarios.

It helps us simplify our storage because we use it for a specific use case of replication between sites. We have two data centers: a primary data center and a secondary data center. We got a Pure Storage device in each location and we do backups of critical data in both locations and then replicate them back and forth between the sites. This is the biggest thing it does for us. 

We have seen a reduction in total costs of ownership. Most of the data that's on the Pure came off of Dell EMC VNX. The money I saved by not renewing maintenance on the Dell EMC devices paid for the Pure Storage devices. I've saved a lot of money and gotten better-performing storage.

With every update we get, we get a reduction in the space used which has been pretty dramatic with each one of the upgrades that we've gone through.

The value of the storage in the way that it stores the data is a very valuable feature for us. We also like that it's robust and stable and that we get good support from them when we have an issue. 

We put very high stress on this solution and we've almost never had any problems with it. We originally went with a competitor's product and after about eight months and a lot of wrangling, we had them buy it back from us. Then we bought a similar Pure Storage product, and it's been great.

Their technical support is excellent. It's the best out of any of the vendors we work with. 

We decided it was time to switch because the other solution was terrible. We were using Dell EMC Unity and it never worked properly and was full of software bugs. Dell EMC couldn't fix it and they had no intention of fixing it. 

The initial setup was easy and we were able to sort data almost immediately. The time from racking to being in production was very short and very simple.

We used a third-party for the implementation. We bought it and we built in some professional services. They were great. Everything with Pure Storage is straightforward. 

The cost of implementing Pure Storage was less than the cost of continuing to maintain the Dell EMC solutions which is ROI for us. In addition to that, the more data we store, the more compression we get, the better it looks.

We initially looked at Pure Storage and Dell EMC Unity. We made the poor decision of going with Unity and eight months later we went with Pure Storage. 

I would rate this solution a ten because of the way the product works. It never blinks. Also because of the progressive support that we get from Pure Storage with updates and opening tickets on the device before we even knew that there was a problem happening. The entire experience of working with them has been great. 

I would advise somebody considering this solution to buy it. 

• It has a small footprint, as the current system is only four units per rack.
• It's got good speed for the price, as it uses eMLC, an advanced type of SSD.
• It's very scalable, and we're not paying for capacity.
• We get free controllers every three years.

For VDI, there's a consistent user experience. Users don’t switch to VDI if it's not at the same speed as a laptop or desktop, and Pure Storage provides that.

It doesn’t provide enough information on performance analytics. For example, Nimble Storage has Infosight, which provides data; Pure Storage doesn’t have an equivalent. It has every other feature, but more data would be the only thing missing.

No issues with deployment.

It's really good and we've never had problem.

Also, it's very simple to use, and one of our customers described it as, “If you know how to use Facebook, you know how to use Pure Storage.”

I think it's actually easier than Facebook.

It scales very well. A new box contains three units, and uses the power of a toaster oven.

We haven’t had to use it. We ran into some issues, but found their technical engineer not as good as Nimble Storage's.

The setup is easy, but not as easy as Nimble. It took about five hours to setup.

There's no additional licenses needed, as everything is included.

Once you try it, you’ll realize how easy it is to use. It has almost every feature.

Pure Storage FlashArray is used for hosting applications, such as Vmware, HyperV, and virtualized applications.

The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is the all-flash storage performance, low latency, and efficiency of their de-duplication technology. Additionally, the ease of use is good compared to other storage systems. The features in data protection, snapshotting, and replication between data centers and sites are superior to other solutions.

Pure Storage FlashArray could improve the recent file storage capabilities because it is lacking a lot of features.

The integration with other vendors, such as antivirus and security vendors they are lacking.

I have been using Pure Storage FlashArray for approximately seven years.

The stability of Pure Storage FlashArray is good.

Pure Storage FlashArray is scalable.

I have used the support from Pure Storage FlashArray.

I rate the support from Pure Storage FlashArray a nine out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup of Pure Storage FlashArray is very simple and it takes four hours for a new system.

Pure Storage FlashArray is not difficult to maintain.

My customers have received a return on investment.

The price of Pure Storage FlashArray could always improve. They are still more expensive than some alternative offerings. Cost is always a concern and when there is a battle they tend to be more expensive.

There are no licenses outside of the storage. When you buy the solution, you receive all the software capabilities and license with the box.

One of the advantages of Pure Storage FlashArray to other solutions is the Evergreen Program. The program allows you to never have to purchase storage that you already purchased again. For every terabyte that you purchase, you don't have to purchase it again, they will replace it. As you maintain the solution, even if the old storage becomes at the end of life, it will replace with newer technology as part of the maintenance.

My advice to others is they should try the solution, it works well.

I rate Pure Storage FlashArray a nine out of ten.

We have a lot of MEDITECH electronic health records systems running on it, as well as some other ancillary applications, but it's core hospital EHR, predominantly.

We've seen a significant reduction in the total cost of ownership. When we bought this product, the arrays that it replaced were just shy of about $1,000,000 apiece and they were the size of big refrigerators. The product that we replaced them with is a couple of rack units, like the size of a stack of a couple of pizza boxes, consuming way less power. There was a dramatic improvement in operating costs just as a result of the environmentals and space, let alone the cost of the unit itself.

Everything could be cheaper. Other areas where we would always like to see improvement with products like this are in compression and deduplication. Increasing the overall storage efficiency of the platform would be great.

One thing I'd like to see in a future release is integration between their main storage array and what they call their FlashBlade product; to be able to snapshot directly from the primary array into multiple different backup copies on FlashBlade. That would be an intriguing and interesting feature for us. Other than that, we've not had any big needs or demands.

It's been a stable product. In six years, we've never had downtime as a result of it. It's been very stable that entire time.

I believe it will scale nicely. We've not had reason to push that limit yet. We just haven't had a need to do that. I believe they've got a very broad portfolio so that we could scale it fairly dramatically beyond where we're at right now.

The approach that Pure takes is what they call it their Evergreen policy, where they will upgrade the brains of the storage array every three years at no additional charge. Many of the competing systems would require big forklift upgrades and fairly significant reinvestment to do the same thing. We are on our third Evergreen lifecycle upgrade so far, and it's been exactly as they advertised. 

When we look at return on investment over time, we've not had to replace or upgrade it during the timeframe that we've had it. As long as it's supported under maintenance, that continues to be an Evergreen process.

It was less expensive than some of the alternatives. It's not as though it was a premium price to get that kind of quality. It's a very competitive product from a price perspective, but I would say better than many in terms of performance and service.

The product is an easy ten out of ten. We've been very happy with it. We've found them to be a great value. Service and support is phenomenal. It's really hard to find reasonable things for them to actually improve it on.