Pure Storage FlashArray Reviews

The primary use case is SAP. It work very well.

SAP is very important to our business. We are running all ERP solutions. Our configurations are run on-premise. 

It has easy implementation.

The most valuable feature is its simplicity. It simplifies the administration and backup.

The predictive performance analytics works well.

I would like to have support available in Spanish.

The stability is perfect. The reliability is 100% and the latency is always lower than 1 millisecond.

The speed is very high on SAP from running it on Pure Storage, and the power on SAP HANA is much faster.

The scalability is good.

I would rate the technical support as a ten out of ten.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We deployed directly with Pure Storage.

The ROI is very positive for the reductions in HANA.

We have seen a 5:1 reduction in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). 

We are finding the TCO of flash to be lower than SSD implementations by 2:1.

It's a simple, robust solution, which is very stable.

Pure Storage is very good and quick for backing up SAP HANA.

All of our production, development, and workloads run on it.

We were previously a legacy storage system. After moving to Pure, the stability and performance both dramatically improved. 

We don't have to worry about storage anymore. Previously, we had to babysit our storage system, doing things like managing the volumes, looking at the capacity, predicting when would we run out of space, and replication work. All of those created a lot of challenges with the previous system. Since moving to Pure, we no longer have to worry. We defined the policies once, and things mostly work.

Pure Storage simplifies the management, overall.

Flash is the most valuable feature.

Scalability is one of the best features. You can quickly add more. You can swap out the drives with larger sizes, you can add more shelves. All of that is perfect - the whole concept of keeping it modular, where you can keep replacing components. That was definitely new several years ago. I would bet competitors are doing it now as well, but when they started, it was an innovation.

The real need that we have is around other backups. Obviously, it has its own snapshot concept but beyond that, having a separate backup system in the Pure ecosystem itself, in that space, would make it all integrated within a single organization and we wouldn't have to deal with multiple companies. That's an area where we thought Flash Blade could serve our needs, but it seems it can't.

Also, for one of our systems, the data reduction that we had initially anticipated when we bought Pure and we moved over is way lower than the expected reduction. It depends on the workloads, of course. But that has been a challenge at times. Because of that, we now need more storage. We are going to have to use the guaranty that they provide when you purchase: If it doesn't meet the overall capacity needs, then they will provide extra storage.

The stability, in general, has been perfect. 

The reason I gave a nine, not a ten, is the upgrades. With most upgrades we have had some kind of problem. They haven't been as smooth as they should have been.

The latest problem with which we are currently dealing, literally today, is that after the latest upgrade, the utilization went up, especially because of the systems space, which is consuming much more than it should. The duplication is not happening on time. Pure acts like it is a bug and that they have a new version with a fix for it. It goes into a cycle often: You keep upgrading and that new upgrade may have some other problem.

That's the primary worry regarding stability. Otherwise, the system works.

Technical support is good, but not as good as we would like. We have to get our Pure account team involved often, and they are stars. That always solves the problem. Support is available 24/7, but sometimes they're not as detail-oriented as we would like in investigating problems.

The setup was pretty straightforward. We recently added two more areas to our ecosystem and the set up was pretty good.

We used a reseller, SHI. Our experience with them was good.

Pure is expensive. But it comes with features so you get what you pay for. It's expensive compared to our old storage systems, but that is balanced by the reduction in the amount of effort human effort involved in& babysitting the storage system. So if you factor in everything, I don't know if the TCO is reduced, but it's not a concern for us, at least.

You get what you pay for. It is expensive, but it really works. So I would really recommend using Pure Storage.

We use Pure Storage on our databases. We have massive SQL databases, four-node clusters and we present a LUN directly to them. Then we have Fusion-io cards as a backup. We also use Pure in our data centers to replicate our databases for our DR center so that we can be secure. 

Pure Storage has helped improve our organization because before them we had a 3PAR of a giant V400 and every day we would lose a disc or a magazine. We had to call out a guy to come onsite. It was a massive three-rack thing. Pure Storage, it's really modular, we're maxing out shelves where we can, and it doesn't take up as much space, it's not as hot, its a lot better than 3PAR.

Replication is the main reason we have it. It has helped to simplify our storage in the way that it just simplifies and there's nothing to really set up. Once we have them linked we ship them over and we sit our RTOs and our RPOs.

As dedupe and compression go up and we get more out of it, then we do see reduction in total cost of ownership. We're also throwing more and more on than we ever had before, so it's hard to tell, but we're getting more data on a smaller array than we ever had before.

The 3PAR SSD arrays that we have are still failing a lot so even though we're under warranty, we still have to get someone out and usually have someone troubleshoot so that usually adds onto the cost. With Pure, we've had a disc fail and we pop it out and you pop it in and it's good to go.

In terms of performance metrics, depending on what we have on it, some of our databases will get 4.8:1. When we do a big release our SQL tables change values so we'll see that reduced and we'll go up to sometimes 110% utilization. We're working with Pure Storage to try to fix that and see what we're changing so much. We also mistakenly had a 10pb on Pure so that data churn really reduced our usable storage. We're learning how to use Pure properly.

The magic that the storage does would be the most valuable feature for us. Deduping on the fly is really cool to us because some of our stuff we get around seven to one, which is amazing. I definitely like the new redesign of the UI that was done. We just had to do a DR test, and we had to make snapshots and copy them over, and it was a lot easier to use I think with this new UI than the old stuff.

Stability is good, we haven't had any issues. The only thing is that we've had to upgrade controllers a few times because we ended up wanting to use more stuff on here. At first, just our databases, then we moved our VMs to it. We really haven't had any issues except just needing to upgrade to bigger controllers.

We stream into StatsD from Pure Storage, LogicMoniter, and a few others so we don't use the UI performance manager as much because we like a single pane of glass but it's got everything I need. When we do see latency or we have issues it's usually really clear from the graphs.

In terms of scalability, we buy new controllers or we build new shelves and we're able to scale out pretty much whenever we want, as long as we have the money to spend.

We will usually hit up technical support for something that's not too major. We've never had a SEV1 outage with Pure but we've enabled remote support. They log in and they're good to go.

We switched because we were running out of support with 3PAR and they wouldn't renew our support unless we got a new array which was a lot of money. We had some of those SSD arrays, we didn't want to put all our eggs in one basket so we spread the vendors by having an SSD array from HPE and Pure. Once we solved the data reduction and what Pure does we were hooked. 

The initial setup was very easy. 

We did the implementation and worked with professional services. For the most part, our main guy in the compute team has had experience and it was pretty simple. We didn't need a forklift like we needed for the HPE. Just rack and sack and ready to go.

We have seen ROI just from being able to move our databases around, because we have different pods, quickly and specifically. With 3PAR we'd have a lot of remote copy failures, and that doesn't look good for an audit or for a DR test. We haven't had any of those problems with Pure, so we spend less time troubleshooting.

We have a bunch of different storage, like Isilon from Dell EMC, NetApp, HPE 3PAR, Cohesity, and Pure Storage. They're all different functions, and Pure is our warrior, if we need something really fast, really low latency.

I would rate this solution a nine.

If someone was considering this solution I'd definitely ask them what their use case for was. If they had a high workload, like for example, I have a buddy who works in the entertainment industry, and they need to edit 4K video, so they need something like Pure that's really fast. I love the support and I love just what Pure does in general, so I'd definitely suggest it.

It has allowed us increased performance along with massive consolidation of space and power. We went from a two cabinet EMC VMAX to a 12U racked system. Very impressive.

Compared to Pure Storage, the IBM V7000 has not improved anything yet within our environment.

The Pure Storage system is, of course, very fast and completely redundant. All updates, upgrades, and hardware work are performed online with no impact. The Pure Storage customer service is by far the best part of the product and organization.

We have found that the NAS portion of the software has limitations. For example, the number of Filesystems is limited, which is not the case on the EMC VNX. 

The service team assigned to the project has good, hard-working people, but we are not receiving the kind of care we should receive to get the project done.

As for IBM, they could increase the maximum storage capacity so more disk shelves can be added.

There have been no issues with the stability of the Pure Storage solution. By contrast, with IBM we have had performance and spiking issues for which IBM applied a workaround patch.

There have been no issues with the scalability for either Pure or IBM.

Customer Service:

10/10 for Pure Storage.

6/10 for IBM.

Technical Support:

Pure Storage is excellent, while IBM is only average.

The IBM V7000 was bought for just NAS and secondary storage and for use as storage for our AS/400 platform. We switched to Pure Storage because of the way the system performs and the fact that it does everything in 32K sizing. The IOPS are high and the support and customer service are exceptional.

Setting up the Pure Storage solutions was simple. It took 45 minutes to rack it and get it online. The IBM system was also fairly simple, taking about two hours to rack and get online.

Both devices were installed through one of our partners who did a good job.

We feel that the pricing is fair and the licensing process was easy for both.

We evaluated EMC (which we already had), Dell, and HP.

The Pure Storage FlashArray is very good. Everything that Pure Storage told me is exactly what we have found to be true. It is the best production and implementation experience I have ever had.

Regarding IBM, the sales team was great, as was the technical team. I now feel that EMC VNX and NetApp are both better NAS systems. If I had to do it over again, I would stay with the EMC VNX for NAS.

We have not had a good experience with the IBM device. The installation and service were very good. However, the services to help us migrate our NAS data from an existing EMC VNX system have failed once already due to ACL permissions issues, specifically on how the V7000 NAS works. I have had to involved IBM Global Support by actually contacting high-level VPs. As of January 26, 2016, we have not successfully migrated our NAS data.

We use Pure Storage FlashArray for storage provisioning.

The single pane of glass is good for management. It has improved our company, but I have been working with this solution for only six months, so it is hard to measure the improvement. However, I know that our usage has only increased. We recently purchased two more models, so my company must be seeing some benefits in continuing with this product.

The best feature is that it is easy to learn and use. We can easily do various tasks related to storage provisioning. We do not have to struggle.

The speed can always be improved.

I have been using Pure Storage FlashArray for six months, but my organization has been using it for about five years.

It is very stable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability. It has helped us with uptime.

It is scalable. I would rate it an eight out of ten for scalability. The upgrades are easy.

The whole organization is using the storage, but we have only five people on the storage team working with it.

We are facing some issues and working with their support to resolve them. Their support is good. We have an account manager, and we can easily raise a case. They also have a good knowledge base.

Positive

It is easy to deploy. It does not require any maintenance from our side.

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

We have our own hosted environment that utilizes Pure. We also use it for customers. We use the solution both internally and externally. We use the tool for data storage and backups.

What we had previously wasn't quite working for us. Pure Storage FlashArray gives us the required availability and sufficient performance. We use the secure snapshots for malware protection. We consume less physical storage because of the solution’s deduplication and compression.

Pure is not designed to be a backup storage. It would be nice if Pure had something in its portfolio that provided higher deduplication and compression for backups. It would be nice to get specialized backup storage with immutability, multifactor authentication, and very high deduplication and compression without sacrificing performance.

I have been using the solution for about five years.

It is an extremely stable solution.

We can start with the base array. As we scale on the contract, we get the higher-end controllers. It's a zero downtime upgrade, which is also very nice. We have some large enterprise customers.

The support is amazing.

Positive

The implementation is easy. The time taken for deployment depends on the engineer. Typically, it takes less than one hour. We need one engineer for the configuration. The tool is very easy to maintain. It has no failure rates.

The ROI is good.

We have customers who use a three-year or five-year license. We also have customers who use Evergreen.

I am also working with Nimble and HPE Alletra. One of the pros of Pure Storage is that it deals with all-flash arrays. It's a lot simpler. The other advantage is the collaboration with Pure.

Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

The core use for us is to test development.

Simplicity and reliability are the most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray.

It would be good to have metrics of the box's performance so we can see what it delivers, but currently, I can't see what it's actually doing—things like CPU and how it's coping.

For the next release, I would like to improve on certain functionality. They have a thing called SafeMode. So, I'd like some kind of SafeMode Manager because the SafeMode is a good feature, but it's very basic in its functionality.

I have been using this solution for three years. We have the I3 and I2 versions.

So far, it's been faultless. It is a stable solution. 

For us, it is a scalable solution. Traditionally, with Pure Storage FlashArray, there has been a problem with scale at the high end, but that's not us anyway. So, it's not something that concerns us.

It's probably around 150 users in my organization. 

I have spoken a lot to technical presales, and it's been fantastic.

The reason my company decided to use Pure Storage FlashArray rather than something else was the simplicity and proper simplicity of the solution. 

The initial setup is easy. 

It's not cheap. It's priced higher than the market.

I would definitely recommend using the solution. Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten because the team is great, and it simply just works.

We use it for block storage workloads. We don't use a lot of the features on it.

It has reduced provisioning time. There is ease of management.

The availability and ease of use are the big features. 

Larger capacity and more storage ports would be the two things I'd like to see.

I have been working with this solution for about three years.

It has been really stable.

That's the only feature that isn't as good. It doesn't scale as large as some of the competitors, but they have started to make them bigger.

We probably have a dozen or so admins who use it, including me. I take care of its maintenance. It is pretty light in terms of maintenance.

It is being used extensively. We'll be increasing its usage. I'm on the networking side. Our IT group is a pretty heavy user too. Both of us will be increasing its usage, but their scale is a little bit bigger than ours.

I would rate them really high. On a scale of one to five, I'd give them a four.

Dell EMC and NetApp would be the two big ones that we used before. We switched because of the cost and the ease of use. Those are the two big ones. In terms of the cost, a lot of it was just introducing a second vendor.

Its setup was really straightforward. It took about half a day. It is pretty quick. All the cabling and facility stuff is usually the longest part.

We had the vendor do most of it. It is like a team, and there is usually one installer guy. Our experience with them was great. Our account team with them is really good. 

Its setup is easier than you think. It is a pretty straightforward deployment.

They have been correcting a couple of things. One of them was that they didn't really scale that large. So, we had to deploy a lot of arrays. They have started to make them bigger now. In addition, until recently, they didn't do a file on the FlashArray. Now, you can share files on it. They recently implemented that, but we haven't tried it yet.

I would rate it a nine out of 10. It does everything we wanted to do.