Amazon FSx vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and NetApp are both solutions in the Cloud Storage category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.3, while NetApp is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.0. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 3.3% mindshare in CS, compared to NetApp’s 12.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Amazon FSx

Read 3 Amazon FSx reviews

266 Views
214 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Read 62 NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP reviews

2,645 Views
1,541 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Amazon FSx

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon FSx and NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Cloud Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon FSx vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon FSx vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

April 2025

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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

Amazon FSx

Ranking in Cloud Storage

14th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

File System Software (5th), File and Object Storage (17th)

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Ranking in Cloud Storage

1st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (1st), Cloud Backup (9th), Public Cloud Storage Services (5th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud Storage category, the mindshare of Amazon FSx is 3.3%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is 12.9%, down from 13.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Storage

Featured Reviews

MuhammadAzhar Khan

Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group

Shared storage capabilities provide enterprise value with good reliability

Amazon FSx is more costly compared to other storage solutions like EBS or EFS. The auto-scaling feature should be improved, as it currently includes downtime. I need to manually increase the storage, which is not ideal. Integrating FSx with Windows Server is challenging; it's a long process involving Active Directory (AD) setup and synchronization.

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Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at Evolent Health

Allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution

The tool's most valuable features are the SnapLock and SnapMirror features. If something goes wrong with the data, we can restore it. This isn't a mirror; we store data in different locations. If there's an issue on the primary site, we can retrieve data from the secondary site. Multiprotocol support in NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is beneficial because it allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution. This feature eliminates the need to purchase different types of storage.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"FSx operates as an independent service, not tied to any server, which eliminates dependencies between applications for storage."

"The shared storage capability is highly valuable."

"I rate the stability of Amazon FSx ten out of ten."

"We used it for disaster recovery perspective behind a number of resources, like batch services and RDS."

"ONTAP is great for helping you migrate on-premise workflows to cloud environments."

"One of the most valuable features is its similarity to the physical app, which makes it familiar. It's almost identical to a real NetApp, which means you can run all of the associated NetApp processes and services with it. Otherwise, we would definitely have to deploy some hardware on a site somewhere, which could be a challenge in terms of CapEx."

"The ability to do a straight SnapMirror from our on-prem to the cloud with no other data transitions is excellent."

"We're able to use the SnapMirror function and SnapMirror data from our on-prem environment into Azure. That is super-helpful. SnapMirror allows you to take data that exists on one NetApp, on a physical NetApp storage platform, and copy it over to another NetApp storage platform. It's a solid, proven technology, so we don't worry about whether data is getting lost or corrupted during the SnapMirror."

"One of the features our customers like is that it can be used from one cloud provider to another. They can use it from Azure to AWS or vice versa. That way, they don't need to use the same provider for backups. If something goes wrong on the primary site, having the same data in another cloud service provider is important."

"We use the mirroring to mirror our volumes to our DR location. We also create snapshots for backups. Snapshots will create a specified snapshot to be able to do a DR test without disrupting our standard mirrors. That means we can create a point-in-time snapshot, then use the ability of FlexClones to make a writeable volume to test with, and then blow it away after the DR test."

"There is unified storage, which provides flexibility. It is set up perfectly for performance and provisioning. We are able to monitor everything using a separate application. It provides error and critical warnings that allow us to take immediate action through ONTAP. We are able to manage everything, log a case, and follow up with the support team, who can fix it. That is how it is unified."

"The fast recovery time objective with the ability to bring the environment back to production in case something happens."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pros

Cons

"A direct FTP feature would be beneficial instead of relying on transmission services."

"Amazon FSx is more costly compared to other storage solutions like EBS or EFS."

"I've been facing a challenge when doing a failover from FSx side. AWS console does not refresh within a half hour."

"Amazon FSx is more costly compared to other storage solutions like EBS or EFS."

"The data tiering needs improvement. E.g., moving hard data to faster disks."

"I rate the scalability a five out of ten."

"In terms of improvement, I would like to see the Azure NetApp Files have the capability of doing SnapMirrors. Azure NetApp Files is, as we know, is an AFF system and it's not used in any of the Microsoft resources. It's basically NetApp hardware, so the best performance you can achieve, but the only reason we can't use that right now is because of the region that it's available in. The second was the SnapMirror capability that we didn't have that we heavily rely on right now."

"The only area for improvement would be some guidance in terms of the future products that NetApp is planning on releasing. I would like to see communication around that or advice such as, "Hey, the world is moving towards this particular trend, and NetApp can help you do that." I do get promotional emails from NetApp, but customer-specific advice would be helpful, based on our use cases."

"I would like this solution to be brought to all the three major players. Right now it's supported only on AWS and Azure. They should bring it to Google as well, because we would like to have flexibility in choosing the underlying cloud storage provider."

"The solution is not stable when using single nodes. This is a problem. NetApp should work on this solution to make it more stable with HA nodes and resolve this issue."

"There is room for improvement with the capacity. There's a very hard limit to how many disks you can have and how much space you can have. That is something they should work to fix, because it's limiting. Right now, the limit is about 360 terabytes or 36 disks."

"It would be fantastic if NetApp could offer a solution that's as user-friendly as Google Drive for seamless cloud storage integration."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The lowest price I have paid is $370 or $380 per month, while the highest can exceed $3,000 per month."

"Some flexibility around the licensing model would help. The product is licensed based on capacity. Basically, the largest capacity license that you can buy is 368 terabytes. At this point, NetApp is addressing some people's concerns around this."

"The AWS consumer-based pricing model makes it easy for developers to use their credit cards to spin up virtual servers immediately."

"Compared to other storage vendors, NetApp, is not always able to compete with their pricing. Yet, we acknowledge the ease of use ONTAP brings with the AWS integration."

"The pricing of this solution is definitely higher than what the typical Azure Files and AWS solutions charge, but given the features and the stability NetApp has provided, we are okay with it. We are not complaining about the pricing."

"We purchased the product directly from NetApp."

"It is expensive. There are no costs in addition to their standard licensing fees."

"We find the pricing to be favorable due to the educational sector we belong to."

"I know the licensing is a bit on the high-end. That's when we had to downsize our MetroCluster disks and just migrate to disks that were half used. We migrated into those just to reduce maintenance costs."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Retailer

Educational Organization

49%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon FSx?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Amazon FSx?

I use Amazon FSx as a shared storage service for Windows, particularly when there are multiple Windows servers and a need for shared storage. I use it when shared resources with different servers, ...

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What advice do you have for others considering Amazon FSx?

I must be aware of my specific use case and choose the solution accordingly. I use FSx when shared storage is required without the need for internet connectivity. It is cheaper to use Amazon S3 whe...

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the license consumption and also the consumption of the underlying cloud storage.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

The solution's pricing is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

NetApp's support could improve.

See all answers

Comparisons

Azure NetApp Files vs Amazon FSx

Compared 23% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Amazon FSx

Compared 13% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Amazon FSx

Compared 10% of the time

Nasuni vs Amazon FSx

Compared 8% of the time

Qumulo vs Amazon FSx

Compared 7% of the time

More Amazon FSx Competitors

Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 16% of the time

Amazon S3 vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 3% of the time

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Storage

March 2025

Download Amazon FSx product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

April 2025

Download NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP product report

Also Known As

Amazon FSx for Windows File Server, Amazon FSx for Lustre

ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO

Overview

Amazon FSx makes it easy and cost effective to launch and run popular file systems. With Amazon FSx, you can leverage the rich feature sets and fast performance of widely-used open source and commercially-licensed file systems, while avoiding time-consuming administrative tasks like hardware provisioning, software configuration, patching, and backups. It provides cost-efficient capacity and high levels of reliability, and it integrates with other AWS services so that you can manage and use the file systems in cloud-native ways.

Amazon FSx provides you with two file systems to choose from: Amazon FSx for Windows File Server for enterprise workloads and Amazon FSx for Lustre for high-performance workloads.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is an efficient storage management solution for managing and storing data in the cloud. It offers seamless integration with cloud providers, advanced data replication capabilities, and high data protection. With reliable performance, it is ideal for industries like healthcare and finance.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Neiman Marcus, T Mobile, Docxellent, Matrix, Lyell

1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard

Buyer's Guide

Amazon FSx vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

April 2025

Free Report: Amazon FSx vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon FSx vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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