We performed a comparison between Pure Storage FlashArray and DNN IntelliFlash based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Pure Storage FlashArray came out ahead of DDN IntelliFlash. Although both products have valuable features and can be estimated as high-end solutions, our reviewers found DDN IntelliFlash more difficult to deploy, with more capabilities for improvement, and with less reliable support.
"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"The solution is scalable."
"The latency is good."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"It provides a combination of all the protocols that you need, without losing deduplication and compression."
"It has reduced our electricity usage by reducing the amount of disks needed for the virtual environment."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"It's very fast. We were seeing read latencies of less than one millisecond. It is robust."
"EasyTier/hotcaching: Valuable because it allows greater performance than standard SAS disks"
"It performed great originally, and when it performed great, it was awesome."
"High performance and ease-of-management are the most valuable features."
"Data Compression: Up to 80% space reduction in the database"
"With Pure Storage, we don't see any latency or IOPS. It has been a very seamless integration."
"The console is simple to use. It has good performance. It is easy to install, understand, and manage, with a good ratio of deduplication and compression. It is doing its job."
"The initial setup was straightforward in the way that it was a database vacuum storage."
"Performance, deduplication, compression, and fast response time for requests from servers and applications."
"We can store more for a cheaper price as opposed to paying for larger devices and larger rack spaces which get outdated sooner and which we'd have to change every two years. It simplifies storage for us."
"The management is simple in Pure Storage FlashArray."
"The deduplication in the array combined with its snap technologies allows the product to be remotely/manually controlled or scheduled."
"It gives us capacity planning."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"We had just one small stability problem with power flapping and it did not start up again automatically. We had to access service ports and manually restart the storage processors."
"It only keeps one hour of real-time data without the ability to do deep analysis of each element."
"It's somewhat scalable, but maybe not so much as some of the competition."
"Technical support is bad. It'd grade them at 30% or 40%. The response time is terrible."
"They need to offer better integration for a virtual platform to enable you to create hyper-converged solution."
"Snapshots are not as easy to access as on a NetApp device."
"Performance is horrible now. Our original intent was to buy new storage in about two years. But since it became a critical urgency for us, we decided to purchase a new one in two or three months."
"In the proxy section you can’t choose a user account and password, so it is not allowed at the moment to go out, if customer has such constellation."
"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."
"I would like to see data tiering to AWS."
"We would like to see better troubleshooting aspects. It helps us if we can find out where the problem is. Right now, it's difficult. Sometimes it's difficult to pinpoint the issue. If they had more visibility and more troubleshooting feature built into the tool that would really help."
"I’d love to view the average, minimum and maximum performance in the reports (Analysis tab - Performance) but it is only graphics and you need to export data in CSV to find this information."
"When we were doing some tests, we found that there was an I/O freeze when they were switching the controller."
"We do have an issue with the vCenter integration. Pure Storage says it has a lot of free space, but vCenter says its completely full. This is because their dedupes are saved as space, but Vcenter still detects the disk as completely full. So, we do have an issue with that."
"I would like to see some improvements on the FlashBlade side around the CIFS space support. I am not super familiar with all the different NAS protocols that they run on their box, but there could be some improvements made on SMB CIFS side."
"Its price could be cheaper. It is not the cheapest one out there, but I'm not directly involved in the figures and negotiations."
Earn 20 points
DDN IntelliFlash is ranked 29th in All-Flash Storage with 11 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 174 reviews. DDN IntelliFlash is rated 7.4, while Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of DDN IntelliFlash writes "Good features with an easy initial setup but technical support is slow ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable". DDN IntelliFlash is most compared with VAST Data, NetApp AFF and Tintri VMstore T7000, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and VMware vSAN.
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