Pure Storage is simple to use, implement and manage.
Updated March 26, 2021

Pure Storage is simple to use, implement and manage.

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Pure Storage FlashArray

Pure Storage is used in all of our data centers across the Pacific Northwest, including in our Candian operations as well. Since moving from traditional RAID, disk-based arrays (EMC, HP/LeftHand) we have left behind the 'old ways' of storage implementations. Implementation, provisioning, and management of storage with Array has been greatly simplified. We have undergone multiple Array upgrades from one model to the next, non-disruptively, 100% as advertised. We have even seen the new controllers upon renewal of support at the end of year 3, as well. Support costs remained relatively stable and predictable based on capacity and since moving to Pure we have not had to migrate all our data to a new SAN because it was cheaper to buy a new array than to continue support on the existing. All of these benefits have revolutionized our data center management strategy, all the while giving us amazing performance for our virtual workloads.
  • Performance: heads and tails above and beyond what a traditional array ever brought to the table.
  • Manageability: 8 hour, overnight upgrades are a thing of the past. Open a case with Pure's Support Team, give them an operating window for the upgrade and then they do the upgrades remotely, generally within an hour.
  • Deduplication: because of the 4:1 deduplication ratios that we are seeing in our environments, we reduced from a full rack of EMC VNX hardware, to 5RU of Rackspace in one of our data centers, while the rest of our arrays are sitting in a single 3RU chassis, providing all the storage we need for 100s of Windows Server and Desktop VMs.
  • I really cannot think of anything that Pure needs to do differently. They are constantly innovating their Pure1 SaaS interface with more benefits and providing on-array software updates that provide value to our IT Team.
  • The most positive impact has been the predictability of support costs beyond the 3-year mark. One year of EMC support after year 5 on our previous array was more expensive than THREE YEARS on our Pure Storage M20 (now and M50) array, AND it included the new controllers at the beginning of year 4.
  • Reduction in power consumption for heating/cooling of the data center as well as general power just to run the array has also been a massive improvement since moving to all-flash with Pure.
  • Nimble
At the time, Array had more feature-rich monitoring software that enabled you to see per-VM performance metrics of machines running on your array. Pure has since introduced similar reporting. Pure continues to innovate and provide the features that competitors are offering, providing less and less reason to look at the competition. Plus, Pure arrays are all flash and not a hybrid, or built around a hybrid model, or with flash support simply tacked on.
  • Snapshot integration with Veeam has given even more performance to our backup processes.
  • Pure online management console provides insight into our technical AND management teams without the need for full array access for people who don't need it.
FlashArray is well suited to general virtual workloads, especially where there are low latency and high I/O requirements. We run all kinds of virtualized SQL workloads without issue and we run our VMware Horizon VDI deployment right alongside the virtual server infrastructure without any performance problems. If you have a lot of test/dev environments, it is a great solution as well because of the deduplication technologies built into Array.

Pure Storage FlashArray Feature Ratings

Flash Array Performance
10
Flash Array Integration
10
Data Compression
10
Non-Intrusive Upgrades
10
Simplicity
10
Power Savings
10

Upgrading Pure Storage FlashArray

Yes - The upgrade processes across all our arrays went smoothly, every single time. Both, standard code upgrades and the 'free every three' controller non-disruptive upgrades where the controllers are replaced one at a time, were absolutely without issue and ZERO disruption to service and completed within an hour or so of the start. It really is a phenomenal setup/process that Pure has going.
  • Zero Down Time
  • Shorter time window for upgrades than any prior SAN manufacturer in the environment
  • Full interaction from Support Team, so on premises staff did not have to have the expertise

Simplicity

Pure Storage FlashArray Support

Pure Support is timely and communicative. They are always ready to assist and very skilled at what they do, no matter the time of day. Even at 12:10 a.m. on New Years Day when your array has a hiccup that causes some errors in your environment, they will be on the phone with you in an instant. If they are unable to determine the cause right away, because things appear to be normal, they will take your environment's configuration, lab it up in their support environment and then research until they figure out what caused the problem. Even if it takes 3 months. True story.