We performed a comparison between NetApp FAS Series and NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) came out ahead of NetApp FAS Series. Although both products have similar deployment difficulty and quality of support, NetApp FAS Series has fewer valuable features and should move towards adopting more all-flash capabilities.
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."
"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"The solution is scalable."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"NetApp AFF has helped to simplify our clients' infrastructure while still getting very high performance for their business-critical applications. One of our customers uses the vSAN environment in the release, then they use NFS for their VMware VCF environment and TKG environment. In this case, when they move to NetApp for the TKG and the VM infrastructures, they use AFF for block, CIFS, and NFS. It provides a single storage with NFS, block, and CIFS with deduplication, team provisioning, and compression. Everything is in there, which makes it very good to use."
"The newest version of ONTAP has a bit of a learning curve because you need to learn where things are to find them. It is not impossible, but when you are accustomed to the older version of ONTAP, it just takes a bit getting used to it, but it is about the same as before."
"This solution has reduced our data center costs because when we went from the 8000 and 3200 series that took us from 20 racks of storage down to two."
"NetApp AFF is very good at cleaning up your storage."
"The scale up version of it is the most valuable feature. You can go to 24 nodes, which is very cool."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its simplicity. It is easy to use."
"Storage is very reliable. You don't have to do much maintenance."
"The most valuable feature is the support. If we have any issues, we can call into NetApp and their support is really good."
"The solution is very stable and reliable"
"Better performance and lower costs."
"Snapshot, deduplication, and compression features are valuable."
"Fast Snapshots"
"It allows our Windows and Unix teams to have a centralized point to share data between the two."
"Compression of the backup Oracle by RMAN on NFS saves space 5:1."
"It changed the way we do Disaster Recovery (DR) around NetApp replication."
"End-users like that they can rely on the Snapshot technology so they can do their restores themselves."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"The software layer has to improve."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"We were migrating from Data ONTAP 7-Mode to its Cluster-Mode. Therefore, we had to get swing gear, then do the migration from loner gear and back onto our new gear. This was a bit difficult. It took us several months to do multiple migrations."
"I just got through the session where it looks like they are going to support Oracle running on Linux with SnapCenter. That is one of the main things that we are hoping to get integrated."
"I would like to see an improvement in the high availability of the NFS and CIFS sharing during upgrade and patching; this would help to avoid downtime."
"The total cost of ownership has increased a little."
"I need faster Fibre Channel over Ethernet. They top out at 10GBs today and I would like that to go to 40 or 100."
"We installed NetSender to test it. I think it could be a good solution. It is very small now, but will probably become bigger in the next few months to years."
"Something I've talked to NetApp about in the past is going more to a node-based architecture, like the hyper-converged solutions that we are doing nowadays. Because the days of having to buy massive quantities of storage all at one time, have changed to being able to grow in smaller increments from a budgetary standpoint. This change would be great for our business. This is what my leadership would like to see in a lot of things that they purchase now. I would like to see that architecture continue to evolve in that clustered environment."
"When comparing with Pure for example, with Pure you have no maintenance anymore and with NetApp, you still need maintenance."
"We would like to have further integration with some backup products. They have some of them already, but there could be more."
"When getting new hardware, always tell the account manager that you are also considering other brands. They will be forced to adjust the price lower."
"There are some technical limitations, but it would be great to have in-line deduplication and in-line compression for the FAS series as well."
"We no longer have OEM support in South Africa which is not helpful, it can be difficult. They should add an office back to the country because it was better."
"Replication should ideally be part of the ONTAP base bundle."
"The adoption of flash by NetApp has also been lagging behind the trendsetters, like TMS, Nimble, and others."
"Cost is always a factor. Some people choose EMC or Dell because they perceive NetApp as being more expensive."
"It may need more flexibility to fight with other competing arrays."
NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 281 reviews while NetApp FAS Series is ranked 5th in Deduplication Software with 98 reviews. NetApp AFF is rated 9.0, while NetApp FAS Series is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of NetApp AFF writes "Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp FAS Series writes "Offers good performance and ". NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Pure Storage FlashArray and NetApp ASA, whereas NetApp FAS Series is most compared with Dell PowerScale (Isilon), HPE StorageWorks MSA, Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain), IBM FlashSystem and HPE StoreEasy. See our NetApp AFF vs. NetApp FAS Series report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
