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SolidFire (discontinued)

SolidFire (discontinued)

Overview

What is SolidFire (discontinued)?

NetApp acquired the scale-out flash storage startup SolidFire in late 2015. The product line was discontinued in October of 2023, and is no longer available from NetApp.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

NetApp SolidFire is a software solution that offers seamless deployment and easy accessibility of virtual infrastructures, leading to …
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Product Demos

Deploy and configure NetApp SolidFire Demo VM v12

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SolidFire QOS Demo: Performance Management

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Product Details

What is SolidFire (discontinued)?

NetApp acquired the scale-out flash storage startup SolidFire in late 2015. The product line was discontinued in October of 2023, and is no longer available from NetApp.

SolidFire (discontinued) Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(9)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

NetApp SolidFire is a software solution that offers seamless deployment and easy accessibility of virtual infrastructures, leading to increased productivity and business performance. According to users, it solves infrastructure problems by providing straightforward deployment and significantly less time-consuming benefits of virtualization that make the most efficient use of physical hardware storage. This solution also allows users to focus on their skills and manage storage efficiently, reducing costs and workload while minimizing manpower usage.

Another significant problem solved by NetApp SolidFire is the ability to easily create and delete VM servers. Users note that this results in cost savings and better use of data center space. Additionally, it enables development and testing, scalability, flexibility, security, load balancing, backup, and recovery. Users appreciate the central management of virtual infrastructures which ensures security, access control, and variable management.

However, users have noted some downsides such as fuzziness on network and segment load which can affect security and access control. Furthermore, when loaded with many VMs, there can be a slowdown in performance. Nevertheless, users view NetApp SolidFire as an effective solution that provides a single software solution to manage virtual infrastructure centrally while improving hardware management by eliminating the need to manage it physically. Overall it helps businesses run more efficiently without sacrificing performance or security.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-4 of 4)
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Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Net App Solid Fire is currently in full use at my organization. I made the decision to purchase and implement this infrastructure. Once set up, the devices seem to run almost flawlessly. The set up took quite a bit of time to initially configure and there, for those who like to know ALL of the details, seems to be a good amount of nooks and crannies to find little settings.
  • Speed is incredible.
  • Ongoing maintenance is great.
  • Price point was quite good.
  • There seems to be an overarching view (with drill downs) of the entire infrastructure.
  • You need a solid partner to implement this product initially.
  • As this product is still integrating with Net Apps mature support systems, I still think that there is room for a better end to end experience.
Excellent all-in-one solution. We chose to purchase a disk and compute nodes across two disparate sites. The failover capabilities are quite good, particularly when paired with a backup solution (we happen to use Veeam). Not the cheapest solution out there. It still needs some maturation. Could stand to have a better end to end administrative experience.
Enterprise Flash Array Storage (6)
83.33333333333334%
8.3
Flash Array Performance
100%
10.0
Flash Array Integration
80%
8.0
Data Compression
90%
9.0
Non-Intrusive Upgrades
90%
9.0
Simplicity
70%
7.0
Power Savings
70%
7.0
  • The ROI was quick - under 1 year
All in all, Net App Solid Fire is a strong competitor to Nutanix AOS or HPE SimpliVity. It is conceded that there are plusses and minuses for the competitive landscape, however, Net App Solid Fire is a worthwhile competitor at a very competitive price point.
In the single experience that our technical staff had with Net App Solid Fire technical support staff, we were impressed with their depth of knowledge, onshore support, communication skills, rapid solution, and follow up. The technical support personnel were really quite good and did a follow-up call after the fact to ensure that we were pleased.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolidFire is used to manage the storage that is connected to our virtualized server environment. It’s used by multiple teams but most often by the compute engineering team to self serve the storage capacity needs. This product addresses a need for fast reliable storage with good management GUI provided.
  • Manages all flash storage
  • Easy to understand GUI
  • API documentation could use some help
  • GUI can be slow
Well suited for companies who use NetApp Storage. This is one of the more performant offerings from NetApp and is highly customizable.
Enterprise Flash Array Storage (5)
32%
3.2
Flash Array Performance
N/A
N/A
Flash Array Integration
N/A
N/A
Data Compression
80%
8.0
Simplicity
40%
4.0
Power Savings
40%
4.0
  • Helps take the burden off storage team for provisioning of new or expansion of existing storage.
  • Reduced licensing cost.
I have not had to use support. However, others on my team have and have been impressed.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use their all-flash storage in our internal data center, which is the HQ for 6 office locations nationwide. We use solid fire storage for production, databases, and anything that needs rapid access capabilities from multiple locations. We find them to be very cost effective, and very good at what they do.
  • Flash
  • Storage
  • On-perm
  • Cloud integration
  • Pricing
  • Support
  • Interoperability
Solid fire is a great fit for data center management staff that need highly available and readily accessible data storage for the entire enterprise. We have multiple site locations across the country who have access to the solid fire data based at our HQ location and never have any issues with connections.
Enterprise Flash Array Storage (6)
85%
8.5
Flash Array Performance
90%
9.0
Flash Array Integration
90%
9.0
Data Compression
90%
9.0
Non-Intrusive Upgrades
80%
8.0
Simplicity
80%
8.0
Power Savings
80%
8.0
  • Effectiveness
  • Ease of use
  • Cost savings by tiering
SolidFire was chosen over these other service providers because of relationships we have with the company, with our reps, and with the local Denver presence. We also are a partner, and we felt that the solution stacked up technologically very well against the competition and was more cost effective.
Ansible, Weka.IO, Cohesity, Komprise, Qumulo, INFINIDAT InfiniBox, Veeam Availability Suite, Veeam Backup & Replication, AWS Backup
Philip Sellers | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolidFire is the primary, tier 2 storage for the organization, used behind vSphere. The company is leveraging VVOLs and Storage Policy Based Management in vSphere on Solidfire to address complexity and management points within the array. It was used to replace aging EMC VNX arrays and consolidate from 6 down to a single array, reducing the management points and independent pools of storage into a single unified pool of all-flash storage. The efficiencies of the array were attractive in making the all-flash costs more affordable in a cost per GB comparison with other arrays. The shift to Solidfire also allowed for the shift from expensive fiber channel infrastructure towards iSCSI and faster Ethernet infrastructure, further eliminating management points.
  • All-flash performance is very good, particularly on read-intensive workloads
  • Performance scales linearly by adding new nodes
  • Guaranteed QOS policies offer both a minimum IOPS and maximum IOPS with burst capabability, so its not just capping the upper limit of a workload
  • Encryption at rest is integrated into the array platform
  • Grid architecture ensures that ability to perform rolling upgrades online without severely impairing performance
  • VVOL capabilities with the array allow granular control and visibility of the workloads
  • Block-only storage platform
  • Latency is higher than expected on write-intensive workloads (making it less effective for log applications and video)
  • UI and marketing inconsistencies make it hard to know how close you are to your maximum performance - all IOPS in UI are reported in actual IOPS whereas the ratings and marketing all use 4K IOPS - users must manually equate actual Average IO size and IOPS to the 4K representation
  • Solidfire's excellent support is being merged with NetApp's support and seems to be harder to navigate and receive the traditional high-quality support
  • ActiveIQ portal is good for longer term views of the array, but it is sub-par compared to competitors like HPE's Infosight
  • VVOL visibility in the UI is constrained - you can dig into details on a single volume but you are unable to compare performance of multiple volumes
Solidfire is a good, multi-purpose array for iSCSI environments. Grid architecture allows incremental, linear expansion of the array both in capacity and performance. The all-flash is a very high performance, low latency platform for a lot of applications. The way the company has architected the platform allows for continual upgrades and removes the lift-and-load replacements if you stay with Solidfire in the future.

The Solidfire fiber channel implementation is workable, but largely there is a checkbox. I cannot imagine any fiber channel shop is going to look at a Solidfire seriously, unless they are looking to move towards Ethernet based transport. Write intensive workloads struggle on the array. The double-helix data protection combined with the architecture can make writes more latent than expected - well into the teens and 20's of ms within the array.
  • Largely allowed us to install and not have to manage the array (set it and forget it) - the array calls home and reports into Active IQ and Solidfire auto-generates cases based on events and is proactive in handling issues.
  • Use of VVOL with the array has reduced the number of management points, but has introduced a new possibility of problems due to the VASA provider and vCenter dependency for VVOLs - it is something to be aware of if you choose to use VVOLs versus VMFS with vSphere. Use of VMFS and traditional LUNs bring less benefits, so there is a trade-off.
  • The first major software upgrade hit a bug specific to our vSphere configuration which causes a major outage. The advertised behavior is a non-disruptive upgrade process and maintenance process. Maintenance has been nondisruptive during a hardware failure (node replacement) and during a drive replacement.
  • Software updates to the array are guided by Solidfire and largely white-glove, handled by their support.
  • Solidfire is block-only, so NetApp FAS, HPE 3PAR, Tegile and Dell EMC Unity have the ability to also run file and block on the same array.
  • Performance scale in a single array of Solidfire is matched only with other software-defined architectures like EMC ScaleIO
  • Controller based architectures like E-Series, EF-Series, XIV and 3PAR usually are constrained by the controller's limits, Solidfire's software-defined, grid architecture breaks free of that
  • Software-defined like Solidfire often has a higher base level of latency than controller-based arrays
  • Solidfire's approach to manageability made it superior to the other arrays evaluated - because it was designed as all-flash and other architectures were designed for spinning disk and hybrid media pools, Solidfire eliminates a lot of the concepts of managing disk pools and tiers of storage and the simplicity is shown in the UI and in the management experience
  • Solidfire's hardware appliance model allowed a white-glove approach to SDS not matched by Dell EMC's ScaleIO
vSphere with Operations Management (VSOM), NAKIVO Backup & Replication, EMC VNX, Windows Server
Yes
Solidfire replaced 6 aging EMC VNX arrays in our organization. Each of the VNX it replaced were smaller pools of capacity acquired over the years and each presented a management problem because it was not federated storage between the arrays. All of the VNX were older spinning-disk arrays that were full both from capacity and performance standpoint and lacked the ability to scale. They were also out of warranty and EMC support was a big expense ongoing. The combined price of support was offset by a single array purchase for our organization.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Existing Relationship with the Vendor
When evaluating a storage array for purchase, there is no single factor - it is a mixture of 3 for our organization. Performance was a key indicator and the evaluation process includes a lot of synthetic workload tests against lab systems [we essentially wanted to put the marketing representations to the test on our own simulated workloads, close to our actual workloads]. Price was also a factor as we had a defined budget for the purchase. And third, Manageability and streamlining management was specifically a goal of this purchase. Although purchase price is an easy tangible amount, the ongoing management and maintenance has an associated price harder to quantify. Eliminating management points, unifying management and pools of discrete storage and reducing the overhead were key for this purchase.
From a performance evaluation, I would simulate more varied workloads to compare the arrays. Using a standard 80 Read/20 Write split did not highlight deficiency in write intensive workloads, so expanded benchmarking would be one change. In terms of other selection process, we might add a couple additional items to the scorecard that we have found to be important - such as specific UI elements to ensure we get accurate alerts and viewpoints within the workloads.
No
Solidfire has traditionally had a single level of support that more resembles a premium support package.
When we have had problems, the response on the Solidfire side has been strong, but not perfect. As they scale and integrate into NetApp, support from regions outside of the USA are having a more difficult time diagnosing and addressing issues for complex problems. The Boulder, CO, and Raleigh, NC, support teams are both extremely strong and provide top-notch support. ActiveIQ is a great support tool both for NetApp/Solidfire and for the customer. The proactive support tickets opened have been helpful. The node-based support has been excellent - meaning when we had a DIMM fail, they sent a replacement node - no time consuming troubleshooting of internal components to fix the issue. Upgrades are handled by SF technicians, so it feels white-glove.
No
One of the Solidfire nodes failed with a DIMM error. Support contacted us about the issue and knew about it before we were aware. The array and performance was not impacted, our workloads were still running perfectly so we had no indication of problem. After a reboot over the out of band management, the technician dispatched a node. The node arrived at our datacenter, and a technician assisted in replacing the node - just add the management IP's and a couple steps it was back in the cluster and rebuilding.
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