NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Score9.3 out of 10

9 Reviews and Ratings

What is NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

The NetApp® EF-Series is a family of entry-level and midrange all-flash storage arrays that accelerate organizations' access to data and help derive value from it. These systems offer NVMe flash storage and provide more affordable to extreme IOPS, boasting response times under 100 microseconds and bandwidth up to 44GBps.

Categories & Use Cases

Flash Array Integration
Integration with hypervisors and applications
Category average: 9.2
Simplicity
Flash arrays should be simple to use and require little training
Category average: 9
Flash Array Performance
Solid state flash arrays offer high speed compared to hard-disk drives
Category average: 9.7

Data Compression
Flash Arrays include compression and deduplication features to reduce storage requirements
Category average: 8.5
Non-Intrusive Upgrades
Software upgrades are often seamless with no performance tuning required
Category average: 9.3
Power Savings
Flash arrays use significantly less power than hard-disk drives
Category average: 8.1

#1 most frequent

Information

40.0%

4 installations of 10

#2 most frequent

Manufacturing

20.0%

2 installations of 10

#3 most frequent

Finance and Insurance

20.0%

2 installations of 10

Naveen Sharma

Consultant in Information Technology at DCM Infotech Ltd (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays for data analytics and for other high performance applications , its great storage provides high IOP's for read-intensive applications ,basically its used in business problems , where application needs high bandwidth of IOP's with simple, fast, reliable enterprise level SAN storage. The scope of this storage in our case to to provide high IOP's to analytics and video surveillance application servers

Pros

Netapp EF series storage basically used for high bandwidth like data analytics
Netapp EF series Flash arrays provide high IOPS with low latency for mixed workload application
NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is also used for fast backup and restore of different applications

Cons

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays basically provides high bandwidth that's basically used for high end application , but still there are lot of application needs to be run on low/medium bandwidth , for that , there some low/medium IOP's disk need be integrated in storage.
NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are accessed NetApp SANtricity Web Services Proxy. which is separate tool or agent , its better we can access the GUI vi browser without any tool or agent.
NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays, need to perform additional configurations for multipathing that's not required in other storage

Return on Investment

The positive impact , its better storage in term of performance (high IOP's , data protection featuure )as compare to other storage in this segment
The negative point is , series storage can be only use for only high end application , its not usable for low end applications and for other purposes .
The Price of this series storage is bit high , every organisation will not able to use it

Other Software Used

IBM FlashSystem, IBM DS8880F, IBM Storwize B5100F

Lukas Mizera

Information Technology Infrastructure Specialist - Storage Management in Information Technology at Kyndryl (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

My customer use this NAS storage devices for bronze application servers (mainly VMs on ESX clusters with important databases). EF- series deliver microsecond response to client's most demanding DBs and maximum uptime. EF-series purchase from NetApp was decided directly by customer architects, and as the devices are powered by NetApp® SANtricity software to give extensive configuration flexibility and custom performance tuning, this was definitely good choice. NetApp here offers ONTAP9 SW and on client environment we use FlexArray Virtualisation as well, becasue ONTAP can integrate with almost any third-party hardware. So, generally, solution for my customer touches virtualization of the environment in 4 regions with most demanded DBs. Globally, likewise for these devices, NetApp come from a larger non-hyperconverged storage family.

Pros

Storage pooling with thin provisioning
Solution of MetroCluster in Cluster-Mode known as MCC
very good solution for more than 500 users per cluster
impressive IOPS, microsecond response times
Faster database application

Cons

maximum of 2TB for FAS250 models
Schedule a downtime maintenance window for SAS expansion cards
Its price is competitive to other NetApp devices, but generally very high with additional licensing

Return on Investment

MCC solution
SSD drives with installed SSD-optimized ONTAP OS AFF resulting with great performance and almost no latency
Easy to manage and use for admins
very good support from Netapp generally
easy setup

Alternatives Considered

IBM FlashSystem, IBM SAN48B-5, Dell EMC Unity, IBM Power and Dell EMC VMAX All Flash Storage

Other Software Used

IBM FlashSystem, IBM Power, IBM DS8880F, Dell EMC Unity, IBM FlashSystem A9000, IBM FlashSystem 9200, IBM FlashSystem 5100, NetApp AFF A-Series All Flash Arrays, NetApp E-Series, IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage, IBM SAN48B-5, NetApp FAS series, IBM Storwize (now part of FlashSystems), IBM System Storage DS8900F (formerly DS8000)

Usability

Jessica Hull

Database Administrator in Professional Services at Ordina (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

This product has been giving us multiple services that have developed effective infrastructure for better development. It has a cloud-based data storage platform that helps us to save data in a secure environment. It is simple to work with the entire system optimizing operations. Data networking has been achieved enhancing the provision of reliable insights that lead to faster growth.

Pros

Provision of secure storage disks.
Data analysis enhancing better planning.

Cons

I have not experienced downtime performance since we deployed this tool.
All the features works effectively.

Return on Investment

There have been positive ROI.
Most operational objectives on data management have been achieved.

Kaushal Rawat

AIX Adminsitrator in Information Technology at DXC Technology Pvt Ltd (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays used for data analytics and other high performance application and data base. Its great storage which provide the high IOP's for read intensive application and database and its well managed the all business problems where application and database need high bandwidth of IOP's.

Pros

This storage for High Bandwidth for Data analysis
NetApp EF provide the high IOP's with low latency.
Its work well for backup and restore for different application data.

Cons

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Array need to perform the additional configuration for multipathing
Experienced are required to manage this storage

Return on Investment

Positive Impact on Business where application and database need high IOP's ,data processing speed.
Its well designed for high end application and database
Its not well suited for small mid-rang organization because of price.
Stability and reliability

Alternatives Considered

IBM FlashSystem and IBM Storwize (now part of FlashSystems)

Verified User

Professional in Information Technology (501-1000 employees employees)

Pros

Good to use for Hyper-V Shared volume
Good to use for passthrough DISK
Very Good for NFS share

Cons

Reporting future /management future need to improve and need to consolidate to single solution

Return on Investment

High dedupe ratio

Alternatives Considered

Dell EMC Avamar

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

What is NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

Categories & Use Cases