There is room for improvement with a focus on creating a centralized storage system, functioning similar to AWS. This involves diverse storage tiers that can be designated for various customers.
The company providing the solution had faced some difficulties with their product line, which they must resolve. One of the challenges we faced while using SolidFire was that the product line that we were using in our company was discontinued.
SolidFire could improve in terms of hardware robustness. We often experience many hardware failures across the environment compared to EMC, with many discs and other known failures. In comparison, Fujitsu is the best, as we don't experience any hardware failures. SolidFire would rank third in hardware robustness, with EMC coming in second. Overall, I feel that the hardware structure of SolidFire is more fragile than that of EMC.
Cloud Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
MSP
Top 20
2021-11-09T01:38:16Z
Nov 9, 2021
We have had some issues with it scaling as high as the marketing says it can. We've got some very large clusters of up to over 20 nodes and when you get to that size your upgrades tend to take a long time or just waste. We tend to have issues beyond 20 plus nodes. The upgrade process could be better. Lately, we've had lots of hardware having general issues with lots of failures. It seems like every month at least we're replacing an entire node, as opposed to just dry failures which you would normally expect, or small components. It seems like we have to replace an entire node pretty often. The hardware reliability isn't quite there.
The only thing I would see as a drawback of SolidFire, is that it's a storage that we can address only with the iSCSI protocol and no other protocol such as FC, or things like that, unfortunately. It's probably the only point that I can see that is not positive compared to other storage solutions. It would be ideal if the solution could be more open with access protocols. Sometimes we have to be careful when we need to add some storage. I'd say some tips and some best practices with respect to that would help. You don't have business continuity with SolidFire. I think it could be a nice feature to have in the future.
SolidFire should start from two nodes instead of the four nodes. That's the only thing. In a lot of solutions, we have to use four nodes, that's the better thing. But as a starting point, two is better. That's why their starting point is expensive. There is another thing - they should have a mixed/Hybrid disk option too; like other solutions have. If you get around the two things, then you can also compete with the cost. The others have mixed/Hybrid disk options. That's why they are cheaper.
For people using FC SAN, SolidFire is not an option because of the interface. The inclusion of more protocols and interfaces would make it easier to integrate with other products. Adding NFS or another file service would be a good feature, on top of the block storage. There are, however, already other solutions for this in the NetApp portfolio.
Technical Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Reseller
2019-11-13T05:28:00Z
Nov 13, 2019
The product does what it's meant to do and I don't think there's any need for improvement at the moment. The same applies to additional features, which would make the product quite expensive and I don't think it requires that. If you add features, you might lose the things that the product is best at. It makes the most sense to let it be what it is. If you buy the solution for its specific purpose it will work well. Once you add additional features like Essex, you diminish the system and that would be a shame. They could make the mNode more user-friendly. Now you need to configure and add nodes by CLI and it’s not really easy to manage. If they created a web interface to do the management of the mNode, that would be great!.
IT Infrastructure Consultant at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Consultant
2019-10-31T06:27:00Z
Oct 31, 2019
The entry-level for this solution is so high that we had to use other solutions for some of our smaller office locations that are in different parts of the world. As a consequence, because we could not use it across our entire organization, we have changed to something else. I would like to see the entry-level changed so that you can do really small systems with SolidFire. This solution would be improved if it were made to be more compatible with other products.
CEO and founder at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Consultant
2018-11-18T07:31:00Z
Nov 18, 2018
They took away the centrifugal outlook and it is not included anymore which is unfortunate. Additionally, I think there is room for improvement needed with its storage capability. A bigger node is needed.
SolidFire delivers all five core elements needed to deliver newfound storage agility to your next generation data center and beyond. With SolidFire you can deploy new applications and capabilities faster, provide more agile and scalable infrastructure, increase application performance and predictability, enable automation and end-user self-service and raise operational efficiency and reduce cost.
There is room for improvement with a focus on creating a centralized storage system, functioning similar to AWS. This involves diverse storage tiers that can be designated for various customers.
The security provided by the solution is one area that can be improved.
The company providing the solution had faced some difficulties with their product line, which they must resolve. One of the challenges we faced while using SolidFire was that the product line that we were using in our company was discontinued.
SolidFire could improve in terms of hardware robustness. We often experience many hardware failures across the environment compared to EMC, with many discs and other known failures. In comparison, Fujitsu is the best, as we don't experience any hardware failures. SolidFire would rank third in hardware robustness, with EMC coming in second. Overall, I feel that the hardware structure of SolidFire is more fragile than that of EMC.
We have had some issues with it scaling as high as the marketing says it can. We've got some very large clusters of up to over 20 nodes and when you get to that size your upgrades tend to take a long time or just waste. We tend to have issues beyond 20 plus nodes. The upgrade process could be better. Lately, we've had lots of hardware having general issues with lots of failures. It seems like every month at least we're replacing an entire node, as opposed to just dry failures which you would normally expect, or small components. It seems like we have to replace an entire node pretty often. The hardware reliability isn't quite there.
The only thing I would see as a drawback of SolidFire, is that it's a storage that we can address only with the iSCSI protocol and no other protocol such as FC, or things like that, unfortunately. It's probably the only point that I can see that is not positive compared to other storage solutions. It would be ideal if the solution could be more open with access protocols. Sometimes we have to be careful when we need to add some storage. I'd say some tips and some best practices with respect to that would help. You don't have business continuity with SolidFire. I think it could be a nice feature to have in the future.
SolidFire should start from two nodes instead of the four nodes. That's the only thing. In a lot of solutions, we have to use four nodes, that's the better thing. But as a starting point, two is better. That's why their starting point is expensive. There is another thing - they should have a mixed/Hybrid disk option too; like other solutions have. If you get around the two things, then you can also compete with the cost. The others have mixed/Hybrid disk options. That's why they are cheaper.
For people using FC SAN, SolidFire is not an option because of the interface. The inclusion of more protocols and interfaces would make it easier to integrate with other products. Adding NFS or another file service would be a good feature, on top of the block storage. There are, however, already other solutions for this in the NetApp portfolio.
The technical support is really bad and has to be improved.
The product does what it's meant to do and I don't think there's any need for improvement at the moment. The same applies to additional features, which would make the product quite expensive and I don't think it requires that. If you add features, you might lose the things that the product is best at. It makes the most sense to let it be what it is. If you buy the solution for its specific purpose it will work well. Once you add additional features like Essex, you diminish the system and that would be a shame. They could make the mNode more user-friendly. Now you need to configure and add nodes by CLI and it’s not really easy to manage. If they created a web interface to do the management of the mNode, that would be great!.
The entry-level for this solution is so high that we had to use other solutions for some of our smaller office locations that are in different parts of the world. As a consequence, because we could not use it across our entire organization, we have changed to something else. I would like to see the entry-level changed so that you can do really small systems with SolidFire. This solution would be improved if it were made to be more compatible with other products.
They took away the centrifugal outlook and it is not included anymore which is unfortunate. Additionally, I think there is room for improvement needed with its storage capability. A bigger node is needed.