Anyone here use or trialed PureStorage/XtremIO/SolidFire?

I've had the good fortune to be able to work on and migrate (this is a work in progress) a large number of users to XtremIO's all flash arrays. Loved the simple interface (though I loathed the initial Java issues with it), ease of administration and top support from VCE for the product. But man the gear's expensive, cost the company a shipload of cash.

Checking out PureStorage for another part of the company, cheaper, simpler interface and just as easy to manage. Top product, we had it delivered and setup in under a week. Great support too.

They're all good and do the same thing if you ask me, it's the price and inter-operability that usually tips the scales. For example, VCE would never allow a Pure AFA be attached to a Vblock. With VCE, it'll have to be an XtremIO Xbrick only.

Anyone else use(d) or trial(ed) these products or SolidFire or any other all flash arrays out there?

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Comments

Essendon

@tstrip007 - once you've worked with a Pure device, you are right, you just want one! Check my blog post for my trial with an FA 450 > My trials with and observations of PureStorage’s All Flash Array

Zentraedi

Essendon wrote: »

Thanks for dropping by mate. Yeah a small XMS server is needed for them, a pain yes, a minor one though for the return you get. Adding certs to the XMS servers (Xbricks Mgmt Servers) can only be done by Support, not that I wanted to do it anyway, but they should let customers do it themselves. Tell me about the firmware upgrade process though, there was this huge ruckus that was raised when mgmt learned the upgrade to 3.0 was destructive, fortunately we hadnt moved any data yet. EMC promised to install a second array for the migration and do it all for us (this saved them!). We upgraded the firmware to 3.0 first, then began to move VMs over.

Didnt know about the destructive adding of another Xbrick! That's going to be a problem, eager to find out more!

As for the price, yes they are really really expensive. Apparently Pure's array of the same specs is a fraction of the price!

Disclaimer: Work for EMC, but focus is not really the XtremIO line or any of the physical arrays.

Well, good news is that the 4.0 firmware appears to be on the horizon and it will introduce non-disruptive X-brick additions. Yes, 3.0 to 4.0 will apparently be non-disruptive as well.

XtremIO 4.0 and dont trust people who go negative. - Virtual Geek

As for the comparison to Pure, can understand the price difference if you look at the technical side (as opposed to sales)... Basically, XtremIO uses same type of RMDA shared memory space controller cluster architecture that you would find in products like VMAX. Pure is more of a standard 2 controller setup like the VNX. While there are trade-offs either way, from a development standpoint the shared memory space architecture is an order of magnitude more complicated and more lines of code. As an example, where it might take a VNX 20k lines of code to land an incoming data block to a physical disk, the VMAX might require 500k.

Anyway, this is a pretty exciting time to be watching this space. So many different start-ups and new approaches. Wonder how things will pan out in the next 1 or 2 years.

Essendon

Thanks for dropping by Zentraedi and posting in this thread. Exciting times ahead no doubt!