Pure Storage FlashArray Reviews

We use Pure Storage FlashArray as well as FlashBlade. In Pure Storage FlashArray, we have the SAN and NAS storage models. 

We focus on performance when it comes to enterprises. We need both types of storage, one is for better performance and the other one is for larger space requirements. We use both types of storage at the same time.

Pure Storage FlashArray is helpful in meeting the performance needs of critical services. Different models are available, and each model has a different series. For example, you have the C model, and in this model, you have the 50 series and 90 series. Similarly, in the X model, you have the 70 series. We now get a lot more models of Pure Storage than before. Previously, not many models of Pure Storage were available, so we had to rely on other vendors, such as NetApp, but we faced performance issues with NetApp. It also required more troubleshooting. We started to get a better response time after we moved from NetApp to Pure Storage.

We have a single pane of glass for management. It is good.

With Pure Storage, the creation of LUNs is easier and quicker than others. We have not had any issues with it. The response time improved significantly, and the entire process became much more efficient, eliminating previously existing troubles.

Some storages do not provide an easy IOPS report, but with Pure Storage, we can see performance impact directly on the storage itself. That is the best feature.

Additionally, creating a replication pair is straightforward without the need for CLI commands. With other storage solutions, we have to use the CLI commands, whereas we do not need to do that with Pure Storage. We can simply create a replication pair. That is another good feature.

I like the performance. Performance-wise, it accommodates the needs of highly-critical servers. It is reliable. That is the third best feature. 

Awareness about Pure Storage needs to increase. Currently, people mostly think of Dell and NetApp when it comes to storage. More documentation and presentation would help reach new users. They need to come up with new ideas and ways to improve their brand awareness.

They also need to see if the system can handle creating a large number of LUNs at the same time. Any automation or a way of doing that could be helpful.

We have been using Pure Storage FlashArray for about two and a half years.

I would rate it an eight out of ten for stability. It has been good.

We have a lot of applications with millions of users. There are five data centers. Three of them are in Hyderabad and two of them are in Mumbai.

We have 150 people working with storage solutions.

I would rate the customer service a seven out of ten. Depending on priority cases, the vendor's response time can vary. For P1 or P2, a case owner is assigned within 15 to 20 minutes. Everything is great from the vendor's side.

Neutral

In my environment, different types of storage vendors are there. We have NetApp, Hitachi, Dell, and other vendors. We have been using Dell PowerStore Storage and we have been migrating some of them too. We have been using Pure Storage FlashArray and FlashBlade for a long time, and we have seen a lot of differences compared to the other storage solutions. 

The performance, latency, and throughput of Pure Storage FlashArray are good. The throughput is 5 GB or 12 GB per second. Latency is also below 5 milliseconds.

The replication process is easier with Pure Storage compared to others. Replication was one task that I found difficult with other storage solutions.

The deployment and associated activities are handled by a different team. They take care of everything necessary for the new environment.

With proper approvals, we can implement it within a month. It does require some maintenance from our end, but the vendor takes care of all the upgrades.

Pricing is moderate. It is neither cheap nor expensive.

We are happy with Pure Storage. About six months ago, we had a Pure Storage event in my company, and I liked attending that Pure Storage event.

Pure Storage should focus on creating more awareness and providing documentation and presentations. It should also aim to reach lower-end clients who are currently focused on other storage types.

I would rate Pure Storage FlashArray an eight out of ten.

We use Pure Storage FlashArray as the primary storage for our virtualized environment. 

Pure Storage arrays use flash memory, which provides faster data access and improved performance compared to traditional spinning disk storage. Pure Storage has features like deduplication, compression, and thin provisioning help reduce storage requirements and optimize the use of available space. The systems come with intuitive management interfaces and automation features that simplify storage operations and reduce administrative overhead.

Pure Storage FlashArray helps reduce downtime by 99.99 percent.

The most valuable feature of the FlashArray is Pure One, which provides a comprehensive overview of our entire storage environment. Pure One allows us to visualize our whole fleet and conduct various administrative assessments. This includes monitoring capacity usage and identifying the specific allocation of storage across our infrastructure. The FlashArray offers a centralized management system that is particularly appealing.

The self-service process encountered a bug that caused it to stall and prevent completion. Pure Storage should address these issues to enhance the functionality of self-service upgrades.

I have been using Pure Storage FlashArray for about three years.

Pure Storage FlashArray is stable. We have not had any issues.

We can quickly scale the FlashArray if the device is not nearing the end of its life. Their systems are designed to scale easily, allowing you to add more capacity or performance as needed without major disruptions.

The technical support team is knowledgeable and efficient. They quickly assign a technician to our cases, who analyses the issue or, if necessary, transfers it to another technician at the end of their shift. This entire process is smooth and seamless.

Positive

I previously used HP Storage, but Pure Storage FlashArray performs better. The IOPS is much better than what HP provides.

The initial setup is complex for exceptionally large environments. Pure Professional Services is always available to assist.

We implemented in-house with support from Pure professional services.

While more expensive than other storage solutions in the same space, Pure Storage FlashArray offers superior performance that often justifies the higher cost and adds value overall.

I would rate Pure Storage FlashArray nine out of ten.

When you purchase a Pure Storage FlashArray, you're not just acquiring storage but also investing in excellent support. With a dedicated support representative assigned to your case, you can expect immediate assistance whenever you log in, day or night.

Maintenance is required for periodic updates and patches. Pure Storage informs us when the patches or updates are available. 

We use the FlashArray X20, M20, M10. We have regulations against cloud, so we're mostly on-Prem. However, we do use Office 365 for email and we have Azure for development on another team but I don't manage that team.

Our primary use case of this solution is to house data stores on virtual machines.

It helps us maintain uptime much better than other solutions we've used in the past and the support is extremely quick and responsive. 

The ease of management, cutting edge technology, and higher availability benefits our IT organization. 

We are running VMware on Pure. The main driver for this was the speed of the virtual machines and the ease of administration with Pure is pretty seamless.

The joint solution has helped my organization. Cody from Pure Storage has been a really big advocate for cutting edge technologies within Pure Storage. He's given us as a customer a lot of tools from his social media to help us do our jobs easier. That's been amazing. It's been awesome for us. The support's been great. Our SC has been great, and our sales reps have been great. Performance is awesome.

The most valuable features of this solution are the speed, ease of use, administration, and the support model.

We have the VMware plugin for Pure storage. It's the plugin that allows us to create a data store. It's super simple but we use it. It's in vCenter. The integrations have helped by making it quicker to deploy data storage.

If we have a LUN that is ready to have a data store put on it, rather than us having to give access to certain people to create data stores, they can just do it directly from vCenter and they won't have to have access to the array. It makes it easier. It's a little faster.

From a software perspective, it's been great. They've done a lot of things with VM integration from the Pure side. I would love for them to have a hyper-converged solution.

The costs could be improved. They still have a very good value proposition. I'm not arguing that they're too expensive, but if they want to continue to increase market share, they're going to have to come up with better ways to get the cost down. The availability of QLC NAND is much cheaper, albeit at a higher latency.

Stability is very high. It's been amazing. They do non-disruptive upgrades that I have never seen anything like in the industry. For us, we can do upgrades in the middle of the day. We wouldn't accept that kind of risk, but we've accepted a lot more risks than we should using Pure and I've never been let down.

Scalability is very good considering the architecture that they're built around, which is the scale-up architecture. It's very good.

Before Pure, we had EMC VNX, and we were having the entire array reboot and we would lose a server room at a remote casino. All VMs would go down and have to reboot because the entire array would reboot. That happened at least three or four times and then that's what made us decide to pay for what I would say is around triple the cost, just to guarantee that that doesn't happen. To my organization, money is less of the concern as the availability. Nobody wants to get that phone call. We had EMC, it was bad. Support wasn't great. I wouldn't say it was bad but it wasn't great. What put us over the top was that Pure is stable.

The initial setup is insanely easy. It's so easy our sales guy can do it with Pure.

We used a reseller for the integration. The company was Pinnacle Business Solutions from Oklahoma city. It was pretty good. We were happy with it.

We absolutely have seen ROI in two areas. The ease of management has made it so easy that we don't have to have extra storage people or systems people. The data reduction has been very generous. We're getting roughly three and a half to one data reduction across all arrays. That's basically three VNXs right there, and three VNXs would cost more than a Pure FlashArray. That's a pretty decent return.

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. 

I wasn't a decision-maker in the decision-making process. Had I been, I would've considered Nimble All Flash Array. I wouldn't consider anything else. Everything else that I know of in the storage industry is not worth us having insanely low latency for that. That's not our number one concern.

They're the leader in the industry and everyone's chasing them. They're a cloud-native array that no one's ever done and their storage is excellent. Even if they weren't one of the fastest arrays in the entire industry, I would use them for their support model and ease of use.

The advice I would give to someone considering this solution is to look past the sticker shock which is return on investment. I would look at data reduction. I would definitely buy into what people say about their support, which is excellent. I would say that your company, whether you realize it or not, is going to benefit from being industry-leading, pushing the edge from a technology perspective, the ease of management, administration, and even the setup. It is well worth it.

I would rate it a nine and a half out of ten. I would rate it that high simply because I think if they can take advantage of QLC NAND and bring the costs down into a different market, it would be perfect. If they wanted to do a hyper-converged solution with this type of support that they have, they would be unbeatable. They're already unbeatable, but QLC NAND is going to bring the costs down for this all-flash architecture, and if you can cut the price of half of the flash array, you can be selling to small, medium business much quicker. It would be fantastic. 

Our primary use case has been our production Oracle campus management database environment. We use Oracle PeopleSoft as our campus management solution and underneath that we have about six terabytes of Oracle Database. Our most demanding use-case for Pure Storage has been hosting these high performance, transactional databases, while also hosting all of our other critical application storage needs (MSSql data-warehouse, BI/Analytics, VMWare).

As soon as we introduced our first Pure Storage FlashArray, the first benefit we saw, from our very first benchmarks, was that our production databases simply ran twice as fast with no other changes. That increase in performance allowed us to then redesign our database environment in ways which had many knock-on benefits, primarily virtualization and automation. Our primary activity as DBAs is copying databases: making clones, doing refreshes, and creating development/test copies. We spend all day, every day doing this. Pure Storage's technology allowed us to automate these tasks, reducing a manual database-deployment process that started as a 12-hour turnaround to an automated solution that takes about 15 minutes.

The most valuable feature has been its performance. It has allowed us to virtualize our production environment, which has many secondary benefits, primarily involving the automation of database administration activities. Very close to that primary benefit has been the effectiveness of their data reduction technology, a combination of deduplication and metadata indexing. In our environment, nearly all of our databases are copies of copies. With Pure Storage's data-reduction technology we can host an unexpectedly large amount of functional data in an affordable amount of storage.

Also, their system-management REST API is excellent: well-documented and very easy to use.

In the higher-education industry, things moves slowly. We are still looking forward to implementing the full list of their existing features. 

In terms of the future, I have been excited by some of the copy data management stuff that they're talking about building into the environment. I've done a lot of automation work using their existing features and tools, so I'm always looking forward to extensions of their API. They're also talking about extending their phone-home centralized analytics interface (PureOne) into a does-everything management console with a list of new cloud, WAN, and backup features, but this doesn't seem finalized. 

We forget they're there. We plugged the first one in, then we didn't look at it for months. We copied more and more stuff into it over that first year and got more and more impressed at how effective Pure's data-reduction technology was. You copy more and more stuff into them and they just sit there, working away. Now that a lot of our daily operations are automated, we barely even log into them.

The data reduction technology part of the scalability has been impressive. We really like its ability to host diverse additional workloads, categories of data, and vendor database technologies.

We have purchased a second array. We also added an additional shelf for capacity to the first array. The process of adding both of these devices took less than an hour in each case: The SE shows up, plugs stuff together, turns it on, and the data moves over.

We've been incredibly happy with their tech support. There was even an instance where we were having an unrelated problem with our production Oracle Databases. If you can imagine having your production Oracle Databases randomly reboot approximately every 12 to 17 hours for no reason that you can figure out. It tends to be something approaching a resumé-generating experience. Out of the blue, we received a proactive, spontaneous call from Pure Storage support saying, "We're observing something weird on one of your Fibre Channel connections. We think you should take a look at this one SFP optical connector on this one channel, because we're seeing stuff on the array which looks unusual." We looked and it turned out to be the problem. We were having this timing error that was causing our databases (because they were clustered) to lose track of the fact that they were part of a cluster. They would just reboot. Pure Storage support, using their phone-home data analytics, solved it, proactively.

They even showed up at our office, just in case it was the Pure Storage array's SFP, not the one in our fibre-channel switch. Our salesperson and sales engineer showed up within an hour at our location with a replacement SFP that we didn't even need. 

Therefore, we are very happy with their tech support.

It was very straightforward, to the point that our SE said, "Watch me as I do this. You'll never need to do this again. It will just sit here." The array set up, for our first array, from taking it out of the box to mounting the first volume, took less than an hour.

Pure Storage showed up, plugged it in, and we attached it to our Fibre Channel SAN and our iSCSI network. We were copying data within an hour and a half or so. Our Pure Storage team is great. There wasn't really an "implementation". No assistance was necessary.

Compared to legacy spinning disk, we have absolutely seen a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO). I don't have an actual sort of number, but it's dramatic. 

In terms of other contemporary arrays, Pure is something you need to have a use case for. It isn't priced for you to just go buy one off-the-shelf. It isn't a casual purchase. If you have an appropriate use case though--heavy lift Oracle Databases, any type of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), or workloads that just really need low latency and high throughput--you should consider all-flash at least and probably Pure Storage. For example, we are starting to use our second array for high performance computing, primarily machine learning, and for that sort of research analytics and heavy math computation you really need all-flash. 

We had existing relationships with vendors who had spinning disk technology. What we weren't getting was the type of flexibility for automation and copy management that all-flash technology offered with the same level of functionality. 

Spinning disk, if you're going to copy things, is zeros and ones on a piece of metal or glass, being moved to another piece of metal or glass. There is physics involved, physical changes. All-flash is largely a metadata-based environment, which means you can make copies of things by changing a few bytes in a table somewhere. 

Pure Storage was chosen because we wanted to move our university's database environment forward in terms of optimization and automation for everyday database administrator activities.

I work with a lot of different storage technologies, including other all-flash solutions, and Pure Storage stands out.

When researching or selecting potential purchase, start with performance, then try to narrow things down by looking at the additional functionality that a particular solution is going to bring into your environment. There are use cases where raw speed is everything, but almost no one is ultimately in that use case. Most people don't want it to be just fast. They want it to:

• Be fast.
• Make their DBAs lives easier.
• Make their VDI work. 
• Run their VMs in VMware in a more reliable, faster way, with better HA. 

Definitely investigate your options. Research a solution's whole set of functionalities, strengths and weaknesses, then compare that to your needs. Don't chose it because it's fastest, cheapest, etc.. Look hard at how you're going to be using it, in detail, over the next 18 to 36 months.

If you are using a storage solution in an enterprise, you need something that has an infrastructure, an ecosystem around it, a whole vendor environment. You're not going to just plug it in. You will want to use it in complex environments for important tasks.

This is why we have never implemented any sort of homegrown SSD or stripped-down, generic SSD storage arrays. We'd need to build all of those additional "ecosystem" features ourselves.

We haven't made a lot of use of Pure's built-in predictive analytics. However, they were beneficial in a couple of our storage capacity-planning discussions. We did use and trust them to understand when it was time to purchase a second //M20, which is the model of array that we use. Partially based on the built-in analytical projections, we purchased a second //M20 array and added capacity to our existing one.

Pure Storage helps to simplify storage. Some of the simplification that we observed simply comes out of its all-flash nature. We suspect that most other all-flash storage arrays in the enterprise would have shared a large percentage of that simplification. However, what Pure Storage adds, uniquely, is that their software is very much aimed at reinforcing and sustaining simplification. Performance is not the only goal; it is performance, simplicity, and ease of use.

We use Pure Storage FlashArray as the primary storage of our organization. 

Pure Storage FlashArray is very important for us because this is our primary storage. Most of our data resides in this storage. We rely heavily on it and our backup solution.

We can integrate Pure Storage FlashArray with our Veeam backup software. In addition to our backup, we also take storage-level snapshots. When we take storage-level snapshots for any volume, we can easily restore any virtual machine by using the Veeam portal from the Pure Storage snapshot. This capability is significant for me. As a storage admin, I find it very easy to restore any data. It also reduces the need for extra storage. The data compression feature minimizes the cost of buying extra storage space, benefiting the organization financially.

The compression rate is one of the most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray. Additionally, it is all-flash storage with excellent IOPS, and hardware failures are very less. 

We can easily replicate our data from the DC site to the DR site. 

Everything has been good, but we faced one issue last year while migrating volumes from one Pure Storage to another. The snapshots were not visible in the Veeam backup portal. Our disaster recovery plan was mostly based on the integration between Veeam and Pure Storage, and we faced a lot of problems. Pure Storage promised that a future upgrade would solve this problem by introducing a plugin.

I have been using Pure Storage FlashArray for about one and a half years.

The solution is very stable, and I would rate its stability a nine out of ten. It has reduced downtime by 90% to 95%.

We are a small organization. We have 120 GB of storage and 3,000 to 4,000 people. We have multiple departments using this solution. We have one production site and one disaster recovery site. We have two locations.

They are almost perfect. I would rate them a nine out of ten.

Positive

I have used IBM Storage before. The main difference is that IBM supports various storage types such as SAS disk and Flash disk, whereas Pure Storage is all-flash storage. That is the main difference between them. Pure Storage has a higher data compression rate than IBM Storage. 

I prefer Pure Storage over IBM Storage when it comes to performance and power. I also prefer Pure Storage in terms of cost because they are giving the subscription feature to upgrade free of cost. There is also a better compression rate, so we have to buy less storage space than IBM Storage.

The initial setup was straightforward. It was not very complex. It takes a few days.

It requires upgrades from time to time. It also requires monitoring. That is all. There is not much maintenance.

The failure rate is very low. It is very stable. It saves resources and time. We do not have any performance issues. The performance is good. In addition to the time and resources, it also saves us costs. Its high data compression rate results in buying less storage space, thus saving costs.

It is cost-effective because after buying a subscription, they provide a service to upgrade hardware for free. They are providing so many features. When you consider the features provided, it is cost-effective.

I would surely recommend Pure Storage FlashArray for its ease of use and less complexity compared to other storage solutions. The snapshot and replication technologies are much easier to understand and implement compared to other storage solutions.

I would rate Pure Storage FlashArray a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for storing data for applications. 

The user interface is very good. It is easy to navigate. 

The deployment is very easy.

It is scalable.

The solution is very reliable.

Technical support is helpful. 

The pricing could be better. It is a bit expensive. 

I've been using the solution for three or four years. 

It's a stable, reliable product. It isn't buggy or glitchy. It doesn't crash or freeze. I'd rate the stability nine out of ten. 

It is scalable and easy to extend. I'd rate the stability nine out of ten. It's very easy. 

We have about four engineers using the solution. 

We increase the storage capacity, however, it depends on the future application usage. 

Technical support is very good. They are helpful and responsive. 

Positive

I've also worked with Dell, which is a bit harder to set up. 

The setup was very straightforward. It's very easy. We find it even easier to set up than Dell. The deployment takes about a few hours or so. You mount it on the rack and power it up and do some configurations to set it up for storage. 

We were able to handle the setup ourselves with the help of a local partner. 

I haven't looked into ROI. It isn't part of my scope. 

It's a costly solution. It is not cheap. 

There is no subscription fee. There is just one initial fee.

We are using an older version of the solution, not necessarily the latest. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. I would recommend the solution for its capabilities, however, the price is too high.

This solution has been part of a POC. We've been evaluating the solution. 

We went through many renditions of testing with a full load. Even if we pulled a controller out, there was just a blip of response, and it was still extremely acceptable within the limit of what we would consider acceptable - and we're talking about one millisecond here.

This code was mature. We found the hardware to be extremely robust. 

It worked flawlessly.

The deployment was fast. 

The plugin for the ESX, the VMware, was great. That integration is just perfect. They're enhancing it all the time, from what we can tell, so it works flawlessly.

Support is excellent. 

It was a very good proof-of-concept experience.

In the configuration, which we brought in or tested it in, it has a very limited config as far as the array goes. That said, it still did more than our anticipation. 

It's going to be a hard one to manage. They have most of what we were looking at, including some things that we're looking at down the road. The growth on this particular array is almost unlimited for most shops. I would say they still need more enhanced speed, however, that's always a thing with storage.

I've used the solution for six months. 

The stability and reliability are excellent. I would rate it nine out of ten in terms of stability.

The scalability was great. I'd rate it nine out of ten overall. 

We have 20,000 people who were virtual machine users that were just on the test load. 

There is potential to increase usage in the future. That said, it's not up to me right now. We're working with the vendor. 

They have very good technical support. The support model was great. They usually had things resolved in under four hours. Service is very fast.

Positive

The deployment is easy. It was implemented in 15 minutes, including SNAP policies. The process was extremely fast.

It required two people to set up the solution. 

We had the whole thing up and running in 20 minutes and probably was done in an hour for everything, including end-to-end connectivity and having ES6 running on it. 

We have witnessed an ROI while using the solution. 

The pricing is okay. It's somewhere in the middle. I'd rate it five out of ten overall. 

We are using an all-flash X-series deployment. 

I'd advise people to test it and give it a try. They need to pay attention to their data reduction rate while doing so. 

I'd rate it nine out of ten overall. 

The setup was extremely simple. 

The solution offers amazing performance. The speed and reliability of their flash arrays are great. In terms of flash storage, they're on it. The performance is there.

Their evergreen solution is probably the most needed in any industry. Especially today in unprecedented times and supply chain issues, their evergreen solution is amazing. 

Whenever we come out with a new feature for our system, we just swap out the storage controller. We don't change anything on our desk and we get the new features. That evergreen approach in your third year costs you nothing. 

It's a great company, great solution. They're dominating in their space for a good reason.

Even their management, their interface, is just the best in the industry. 

The solution can scale.

They're in a continuous act of improvement with a continuous delivery state. Everybody should be following their model right now. We are so impressed with Pure that even as we are an M&A-based company, if we acquire another company, Pure is automatically selected to be the storage that's going to replace whatever they have if they're not already using it. We have no complaints about how they run things.

I can't see where they can make anything better, unless, of course, they lower their prices even more. Even so, it's not so expensive. Even at the price point that they have right now, no one's complaining. 

The solution is very stable. Its performance is amazing. There are no bugs or glitches, it does not crash or freeze. 

The scalability is right there if you need it. It's instantaneous. You add another roll of flash right in there. It's literally plug-and-play. That flash becomes online and immediately available. You couldn't ask for a smoother experience. It's just been amazing.

We have 19,000 employees and 3,000 employees from a corporate level. There are about 4,000 different businesses functions that all run their products off of these solutions that we provide from IT.

We've never really had to call tech support for this product as we haven't had any issues. I attribute that to these guys paying attention to everything, every single detail, to make sure that their product is seamless.

We used to use IBM XIV.

We migrated from IBM XIV into Pure Storage FlashArray and we did that migration ourselves. Due to Pure Storage's professional services, we did an entire migration in under 30 days, which was unprecedented for a company this size and we did that without impacting business. 

Nobody was taken down, our stores were still running, our warehouses were still shipping. However, the entire time, this was the equivalent of basically moving the basement from underneath your house, while you are sleeping and replacing it with one we wanted. The process was amazing.

We use one person to handle the maintenance. There's a backup to them if we need to have something covered, however, they've not had to do anything with the storage. One person might look at it one hour out of the week to make sure we're doing fine.

We were able to do our migration due to the brilliant people at Pure Storage. We worked through all of it together. It was an amazing setup experience. 

There are true cost savings with this product. If you're an OPEX-adverse organization the cost per period is just really low. We were paying $90,000 per period with IBM and we have 13 periods. We went to Pure Storage and now we're doing $38,000 per period - and yet we have the highest performance here. Pure Storage will give you savings.

We entered into a partnership with Pure Storage.

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten.