Pure Storage FlashArray is the best SAN I've ever used!
September 05, 2019
Pure Storage FlashArray is the best SAN I've ever used!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Pure Storage FlashArray
We use Pure Storage FlashArray for primary storage for all virtualized database servers. Prior to acquiring FlashArray, we struggled with SAN latency on all virtual servers which is an extreme performance killer for database platforms and some applications. Through the implementation of Pure Storage FlashArray and following vendor best practices, we now have 1-2ms latency to our data warehouses and high-transaction database servers.
- Pure Storage FlashArray has the very best implementation of Virtual Volumes (VVols) for VMware.
- Pure Storage has very good documentation for best practices for accommodating different types of workloads and access patterns.
- FlashArray outperformed other all-flash SANs by 35% in our testing.
- FlashArray's integrated VASA provider helps avoid many configuration mistakes with VVols on VMware.
- Pricing is still a little steep (but worth it).
- Could use better training for SAN admins so they can fully utilize its features.
- SAN devices are critical to any business processes using them, so downtime due to firmware upgrades multiple disk failures can easily cost $1M or more.
- Previous, competing SAN arrays had occasional downtime for patches and once suffered failure of too many disks, rendering storage inoperable.
- Pure Storage FlashArray has increased our uptime by eliminating patch outages and proactively warns of degrading disks so they can be replaced prior to failure.
- FlashArray also helped us achieve a
Dell/EMC support was not as effective as Pure Storage's. Within days of selecting Pure Storage FlashArray, we had a team of technicians helping implement the array, integrate it with our existing systems, and test migration of VMware datastore to the array for proof-of-concept testing. Pure technicians and sales staff also helped supply us with documentation and best practices for our use cases and offered first-hand knowledge of edge cases for further tuning.