We performed a comparison between Huawei OceanStor and Pure Storage FlashArray 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 Huawei OceanStor. Even though both products were described as easy to deploy and with valuable features, Huawei OceanStor has a complex licensing model and needs better communication for effective technical support.
"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"The latency is good."
"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"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 is the flexibility in the rail, as it is hybrid storage."
"Stability: The product is designed to have always HA (High Availability) with redundant network and processors."
"The solution works well for non-critical applications that do not require a heavy workload. The tool's all features are valuable."
"Huawei OceanStor is a good product. Its interface is very simple. The complexities we encounter with recovery points are gone. We just attach to remote storage, click the application, and it starts."
"OceanStor can be used as NAS and SAN storage at the same time, with both file and block features in the same box."
"The most valuable features of Huawei OceanStor are the dashboards, bandwidth, and data performance."
"Huawei OceanStor is stable."
"The support is excellent."
"It is easy to manage. You don't have to have the same people who used to manage the Dell EMC arrays because the solution is more intuitive."
"It's easy to use, and the maintenance upgrades to get free controllers work really well."
"Pure Storage technology allowed us to automate tasks, reducing something which started as a 12-hour turnaround down to about 15 minutes."
"Because of the encryption, we have different storage and the encryption can go over both."
"The speed is the most valuable feature, along with the ease of getting it connected. We were able to get it online in less than a day."
"It's very fast and very easy to use. It performs well and is both flexible and compatible. We like it because it's easy to use."
"The mobile app is very helpful."
"The predictive performance analytics is a very good feature, as our system is performing better than before."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"It is on the expensive side."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"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."
"The price could be better. It's not good for the Brazilian market."
"Huawei is not that cheap."
"The deployment took a little longer."
"The management is not a good feature in all of Huawei products. It's not easy or simple. Huawei has some problems with management and handling storage information from one interface."
"The speed has room for improvement."
"Its data replication features work slowly for nodes."
"The main concern is regarding the usability of the data storage."
"The overall price of the solution should be reduced."
"We did have one hiccup with the integration of vCenter. When we were installing Pure Storage, we were using vCenter 6.7, which defaults to the HTML5 Web Client. The current plugin for Pure Storage doesn't show up in that client at all. You have to go and use the legacy FlexFlash client to see the Pure Storage plugin in vCenter."
"FlashArray's capacity for forecasting should be improved because it needs to be a bit more current. I think it's bundled with the deduplication and other compression factors. We need more user interfaces for forecasting in this software and more interfaces need to be integrated with this array management tool."
"Pure Storage will have issues with positioning in the near future since its a relatively new company. For now, customers need a PoC to trust using the solution, as it can't stand on its brand name alone. They need to improve Pure Storage's marketing."
"I'd like to see a move towards individual VMs for what the performance of each VM is in a VD infrastructure. I can see the overall volume, but I would love to see things in a more granular level on the VM side."
"I feel like there is too much automation; the user doesn't have any manual input."
"Some services could be inserted directly into the SAN, so Pure Storage could complete with the HyperFlex."
"The solution is not cheap."
"Currently, the solution fails to support file screening."
Huawei OceanStor is ranked 12th in All-Flash Storage with 32 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 174 reviews. Huawei OceanStor is rated 8.4, while Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Huawei OceanStor writes "User-friendly and robust storage solution with good performance and easy setup". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable". Huawei OceanStor is most compared with Huawei OceanStor Dorado, Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, Dell Unity XT and HPE 3PAR StoreServ, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and VMware vSAN. See our Huawei OceanStor vs. Pure Storage FlashArray report.
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