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NetApp FAS Series vs Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd), NAS (3rd)
Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appl...
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 12.9%, down from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance is 5.6%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NetApp FAS Series12.9%
Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance5.6%
Other81.5%
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

Srikanth Purushothaman - PeerSpot reviewer
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
Has supported long-term data protection and backup while requiring better part availability and pricing options
For monitoring purposes, we normally use flash access storage exclusively. We utilize a hybrid system because we need performance, combining NL-SAS for the volume and SAS flash to use as a fast cache system that provides more IOPS. We normally implement RAID 10, which we prefer over RAID 6's n plus 2 combinations. We utilize it for data redundancy, even with write intensity on. Regarding the unified storage architecture for NetApp FAS Series, we normally opt for exclusivity unless budget constraints exist. Our IOPS are very high, reaching somewhere about 50k to 150k or 1.150k. The high performance ensures minimal latency. An advantage we've seen with NetApp FAS Series is that snapshots provide very rapid backup and fast recovery. We basically use snapshots for data protection as first-level protection, with deduplication between the two storages serving as second-level protection.
RM
IT Consultant at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
A stable unified storage system that enables quick access to data
The main thing Oracle can improve is the cost. It would be better if Oracle opened up the system to enable integration with other vendors. Whether it's the database, application server, or storage appliance, they should make it easy to integrate them. They need to open up more to ensure that it can work in any environment and IT ecosystem.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"You can use different protocols at the same time. Monitoring is also very easy in NetApp FAS Series. There is a free tool for monitoring."
"It allows our Windows and Unix teams to have a centralized point to share data between the two."
"It is very flexible. It integrates well with the public cloud and other components, so everything can be API driven. Therefore, it is very easy to automate it."
"The solution is very stable and reliable"
"The ONTAP tools make managing VMware easier."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its absolute reliability."
"A reliable and easily managed storage system is a key performance factor. The system also has more features than we require."
"It is good to have a unified storage where you can have block and file level protocols."
"I like its storage capacity, quick access to the data, speed, and overall storage management."
 

Cons

"Needs to improve the adaptive storage quality of service."
"I’ve found that I use command line more often than I thought needed. Some things should be done in the GUI, and command-line switches can be overwhelming and take up a lot of time."
"They should add new features to the product."
"We would like to have further integration with some backup products. They have some of them already, but there could be more."
"The WAFL is slow."
"If our customer needs a high-performance storage solution then we don't recommend this product."
"It may need more flexibility to fight with other competing arrays."
"A big problem with physical appliances is that updating them can be a bit burdensome."
"The main thing Oracle can improve is the cost. It would be better if Oracle opened up the system to enable integration with other vendors. Whether it's the database, application server, or storage appliance, they should make it easy to integrate them. They need to open up more to ensure that it can work in any environment and IT ecosystem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We purchased it for four years, and it wasn't expensive. It was reasonable. Every company has a different agreement with NetApp. We got everything we wanted with all the bells and whistles and all the features and functionalities."
"The product's pricing is reasonable."
"The scalability is pretty good, but it's too expensive."
"I don't recall the price, but in general, pricing can always be better."
"It is a one-time license charge for NetApp FAS Series to run and we pay annually for upgrades and support."
"The solution is more expensive than other vendors."
"In general, I find NetApp to be very expensive. That's the main issue I have with them. So it's a drawback in terms of pricing."
"The process for going to cluster mode is expensive."
"The price could be better. We have many competing products now like Huawei and Dell EMC, and these are slightly cheaper."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise58
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which SAN product would you choose: IBM FlashSystem (FS9500) vs PureFlash Array/X NVMe vs PureFlash Array/XL NVMe?
Have you considered a NetApp FAS Storage for your NAS needs? I am sure it fits very well.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp FAS Series?
The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is not cheap, but in comparison to other vendors, NetApp FAS Series is affordable because they also have deduplication, compression, and inline compression. They fo...
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Also Known As

No data available
Sun ZFS Storage Appliance
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College
Translational Genomics Research Institute, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, CyberSolutions Inc., Y-Telecom, First Alliance Bank Zambia Limited, AZ Sint-Jan Brugge-Oostende, Mutlinet Pakistan, TDC A/S, Digi-Key Corporation, Thurgau Cantonal Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp FAS Series vs. Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,928 professionals have used our research since 2012.