Pure Storage FlashArray Reviews

FlashArray is our main repository for all our VMware.

We've been using FlashArray's snapshot for backups. Their replication across sites and response time are also excellent.

When we were doing some tests, we found that there was an I/O freeze when they were switching the controller.

I've been using FlashArray for a year and a half.

For our needs, the stability was very good. 

The scalability was also very good.

The installation was pretty straightforward.

I would rate Pure Storage FlashArray eight out of 10.

We use flash storage for VDI architecture and database architecture.

It's very fast and very easy to use. It performs well and is both flexible and compatible. We like it because it's easy to use. We transferred our old architecture from hyper storage to all-flash storage. It made our business faster and more connected to our customers.

The dashboard is very friendly. We can see information about IPs and the bandwidth and every host who connects to it — it's very useful.

We really like the easy-to-use GUI.

The integration capabilities could be improved.

I have been using this solution for roughly three years.

Pure Storage FlashArray is a very stable and reliable solution.

In our environment, there are only two nodes. We have three products. Each one has two nodes and they can't extend any further.

We haven't needed to contact customer support. 

This solution is very easy to deploy. Deployment took roughly half an hour.

I was not involved with the licensing of this solution.

We recommend this solution to our friends and customers. It's perfect.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of nine.

All of our production and development workloads run on Pure Storage.

It simplifies the overall management. We don't have to worry about storage anymore. The solution mostly works. We used to have to babysit our previous storage system, such as managing the volumes and looking at the capacity to predict when we would we eventually run out of space. All of these things used to be challenges with our previous system. After moving to Pure Storage, we don't have to worry about them too much. We have defined our policies once, then things mostly work.

Most of our upgrades have not been as smooth as they should have been. The latest problem, which we are currently dealing with as of today, is after the latest upgrade, utilization ran out because of the system's space. It is consuming more than it should. The deduplication and compression are not happening in time. The quality is always behind, and Pure Storage acts like it is a bug, and they have a new version that has a fix for it. So, it often goes into a cycle. Then, you keep upgrading, then the new upgrade may have some other problem.

FlashArray is more geared towards bigger, organic workloads where our real need has been around other backups. While it has its own snapshot concept, it should have a separate backup system similar to what Commvault provides. Having something native in the Pure Storage ecosystem would make it integrated and in one single company, and we wouldn't have to work with multiple organizations. This is an area that we have already discussed with our account team.

In general, the stability has been perfect. The primary worry for stability is upgrades. The system works unless you touch it, then there are a ton of upgrades.

We can quickly add more shelves and drives with larger sizes, which is perfect. The whole concept of keeping it all modular is definitely new.

While the technical support is good, they are not as good as we would like them to be. We often have to get our account team involved, who are stars. This always solves the problem. Support is available 24/7, but sometimes not as detail-oriented in investigating problems. E.g., we get our Account Team involved to manage the engineers involved and figure out what the problem was. Support is not perfect.

We were previously on legacy storage systems. After moving to Pure Storage, our stability and performance both drastically improved.

The setup is straightforward. We recently added two more areas to our ecosystem, and the setup was phenomenal.

We used a reseller for the deployment named SHI, and our experience with them was good.

For one of our systems, the data reduction which was initially anticipated when we bought the FlashArray was lower than that expected production when we moved over.

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.

The guaranty that Pure Storage provides when you purchase it doesn't meet the overall capacity needs to provide extra storage, if needed. Thus, it is not meeting our expectations.

You get what you pay for; it is expensive, but it works. Therefore, I would recommend using Pure Storage.

I don't use the predictive performance analytics too much.

We use this solution for our database, log store, and for the file system.

It has improved my organization in the way that now we have lower latency, we get fewer complaints from customers, and we see a constant response time. 

Compared to VMware, it has two to three times better performance. 

In terms of stability, we have had two outages. Pure Storage helped up resolved it quickly. Since then we haven't had any issues. 

Their technical support is good. We had issues that they resolved quickly. 

We switched because we had a lot of issues with our previous storage solution. 

This initial setup was straightforward. After we launched it, it was very simple to move the old to the new. It didn't take much time. 

I would rate this solution an eight because we have had outages. The commit times went very high in the database. The whole array went down so our customers were down for around eight hours. This was a very big outage which could have been our fault because we didn't do the upgrade in time. 

We sell a SaaS offering of the storage to our customers. We use the storage as our main storage and also as our backup storage.

You don't have to go and buy your own storage. You can get your storage access within two minutes, which is great, because it is a lot quicker for our team to get the servers up and running. It provides access to the systems that we want to give access to.

• Cheaper
• Quicker
• Easy to access if we need to obtain backups.
• It helps to simplify storage because it has an easy front-end to access everything.

This may be available, but we are not using it. I would like to get a weekly report of how our storage has been used, and if there is any storage sitting there not being used.

I have not had it go down yet, so stability is good.

I have never had a problem getting more storage, so scalability seems pretty good.

The initial setup is straightforward. Though, I have now passed this task onto the tech team to do.

Speak to an account manager and get the right deal.

I would definitely look at Pure Storage. 

Flash Reduce - The data reduction methods employed by the Pure Storage array is one of the best that I have seen.

The Flash Reduce feature makes use of data de-duplication techniques which in turn reduces the amount of storage required thus reducing the need to procure additional storage.

With the introduction of Albireo technology and 81x data de-duplication reduction, Pure Storage better start looking at more effective de-duplication techniques.

I used the Pure Storage All Flash Array over an eight month period.

None whatsoever. The implementation partner was very efficient and knowledgeable.

An initial issue was encountered which had no business impact and was resolved after a firmware upgrade.

None whatsoever. The product functions as designed.

The business partner performing the support/customer service is very knowledgeable and they even perform weekly visits to determine if all is well.

Technical support is very helpful and the relevant Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) are readily available globally.

Yes, the cost of the previous product (fibre channel array) versus the cost of an all flash array differs drastically. We were pleasantly surprised that we received fibre channel pricing for an all flash array.

The array setup was very simple. In fact it was one of the simplest implementations I have ever experienced. The installation interface is self-explanatory, even a novice could perform the install.

A vendor team performed the installation with the assistance of an in-house team. The vendor team performed the installation very professionally and have a wealth of knowledge across various vendor platforms.

Yes, we also looked at EMC, VMAX, and Oracle FS1.

This is a very good product at a very good price, with very good support.

The most valuable feature is replication.

Areas for improvement would be the financial operations. In the next release, I would like to see a NAS protocol included.

I've been working with this solution for two years.

This is a very stable solution.

Technical support is very good.

There are some additional costs.

I would rate this solution as ten out of ten.

We use the on-premise deployment model of this solution for the bank. We use AWS as our cloud provider. 

High speed has been an improvement for our organization.

We are using the private cloud version. I run it on vSphere, vCenter, and vRealize. 

It benefits our IT organization in the way that it's easier for the administrators to manage. 

The performance is the most valuable feature. 

There could be better storage.

I like this storage because it is very easy.

Scalability is good. 

I haven't needed to use support. My employees say their support very good.

The initial setup was easy and straightforward.

I don't know the exact cost but it's around $1,000.

The team that worked with this program say it's a very good program, so I'd recommend it.

My coworkers say it's very good, so I would give this a nine out of ten. For me, no product ever gets a ten, because nothing is perfect.