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 solution is scalable."
"Pure has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."
"High performance and ease-of-management are the most valuable features."
"Data Compression: Up to 80% space reduction in the database"
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"It performed great originally, and when it performed great, it was awesome."
"EasyTier/hotcaching: Valuable because it allows greater performance than standard SAS disks"
"It's very fast. We were seeing read latencies of less than one millisecond. It is robust."
"It has reduced our electricity usage by reducing the amount of disks needed for the virtual environment."
"It provides a combination of all the protocols that you need, without losing deduplication and compression."
"The solution has probably reduced my power use substantially."
"The most valuable feature is its upgradeability."
"It is easy to deploy and it's all-flash, so it's very fast."
"The top-tier support and reliable storage are the most valuable features of this solution."
"Pure Storage is extremely reliable — it's never failed."
"It's simple, powerful, and ready to use."
"The first set up we had was really straight forward and simple."
"Having an intuitive user interface to get things running is great."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."
"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"It's somewhat scalable, but maybe not so much as some of the competition."
"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."
"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."
"Technical support is bad. It'd grade them at 30% or 40%. The response time is terrible."
"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."
"Snapshots are not as easy to access as on a NetApp device."
"It only keeps one hour of real-time data without the ability to do deep analysis of each element."
"They need to offer better integration for a virtual platform to enable you to create hyper-converged solution."
"It is not possible to create a cluster on top of multiple arrays."
"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."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve by being more secure."
"There are scenarios with very specific functionality around VMware integration particularly to do with the way we'd like to manage LUNs in VMware. The tools are pretty good but there's room for improvement there."
"I feel like there is too much automation; the user doesn't have any manual input."
"It was a little costly. The price was ultimately higher than both of the other solutions that we evaluated. I'd say that's the only downside."
"As partners, we should have the option to download the software, rather than have to go back through Pure to obtain it."
"They could improve the price."
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, Tintri VMstore T7000 and NetApp AFF, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and VMware vSAN.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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