DataCore SANsymphony vs NetApp ONTAP comparison

DataCore and NetApp are both solutions in the Storage Software category. DataCore is ranked #2 with an average rating of 9.4, while NetApp is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8. DataCore holds a 30.2% mindshare in SS, compared to NetApp’s 42.9% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of DataCore users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

DataCore SANsymphony

Read 56 DataCore SANsymphony reviews

273 Views
155 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

NetApp ONTAP

Read 78 NetApp ONTAP reviews

807 Views
232 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

DataCore SANsymphony

NetApp ONTAP

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between DataCore SANsymphony and NetApp ONTAP based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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

To learn more, read our detailed DataCore SANsymphony vs. NetApp ONTAP Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony vs. NetApp ONTAP

March 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

DataCore SANsymphony

Ranking in Storage Software

2nd

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (5th), HCI (7th), Storage Performance (2nd)

NetApp ONTAP

Ranking in Storage Software

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Storage Software category, the mindshare of DataCore SANsymphony is 30.2%, up from 27.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp ONTAP is 42.9%, up from 42.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Storage Software

Featured Reviews

TempreviewerD

Architecte Principal at Orange

Robust with good replication and access protection

The solution is constantly evolving. Recently, deduplication and compression have been further improved to meet customer needs, and updates are easily implemented without stopping production. The update assistant checks the state of health before using good practices, during checks that the data is still presented for service continuity, and afterward, if the actions carried out are indeed active. Technical support is truly available even without a production incident. This is really essential right now.

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Christopher Cagayan

IT Server and Storage Engineer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

A solution that comes with several valuable features and excellent SAN storage

NetApp ONTAP is scalable. They have two types of scalability, "scale up" and "scale out." With "scale up," you can get up to petabytes of data if you have the money to buy those servers and add them to the system. And "scale out" also, you can buy additional controllers, up to 12 nodes, which is pretty good when you are a big company. I rate the scalability a nine out of ten. NetApp is one of our organization's main storage systems. Every application is scattered on all of our NetApp devices. Applications won't run without it because they need to pull data from NetApp ONTAP.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Oracle OLTP benchmark to test how it improves the performance while using flash drive NVMe."

"It's a software storage solution that can scale as we like. There is also has a parallel feature that enhances the performance of the storage solution. We can separate storage and computing, and we can scale these two parts of the platform to meet business needs efficiently."

"I found the solution to be very stable."

"The support is excellent."

"During the maintenance periods, on any part of the storage or VMware migration, we have had no downtime."

"Our system is designed to be scalable and flexible, so it can grow and adapt to meet the changing needs of our clients."

"Continuous data protection (CDP), can be used to "protect" again ransomware by recording all write on disk in a log. You can recover your data with incredible time granularity."

"The synchronous mirror allows us to operate a fully redundant storage solution that is distributed across two sites."

More DataCore SANsymphony pros

"It has multiple uses. It does everything in one box."

"We are going the direction of automation in the cloud. It has flexibility and supportability around NetApp solutions and products."

"The stability of our ONTAP system has been awesome over the last four to five years, particularly with the software. The controls have been excellent as well. We recently went through a view of all of our systems and found a number of them had been up, over three years without any sort of reboots or downtime. We have been very happy with the stability of the systems."

"We are saving more disk space which saves us more money."

"It is very easy to scale, so we started with a four-node cluster and added it to a six-node cluster. We've also done some other modifications in between."

"CIFS and NFS protocols have delivered the most value. NetApp ONTAP offers very reliable CIFS and NFS protocols."

"It gives us a location to store data across multiple mount points."

"The most valuable features of NetApp ONTAP are its data redundancy, performance, storage catering, snapshot technology, and NetApp Insight."

More NetApp ONTAP pros

Cons

"SANsymphony is missing some features that vSAN has. For example, vSAN has a special feature called continuous data protection. It provides the ability to go back in time to a given moment. You can see what was on your disk in the past up to two weeks. That's a great feature because ransomware attacks are increasingly common, and that provides you some kind of protection."

"When I sometimes reboot for maintenance, the connectivity from the iSCSI initiator host could be improved."

"NVMeoF should be implemented. This protocol will play a major role in storage infrastructure in the future."

"Having an enterprise "Storage Dashboard" that can show capacity, usage, performance, and any issues would be very beneficial."

"I would like for it to improve into a more ergonomic management console and a translation into the French language. It should have some process for a shutdown of a VM properly in case of a problem."

"For customers or technicians that don't speak and understand English, it could be great to have other languages support, all the more so given the number of countries in which SanSymphony is used."

"We'd like to manage the raid on the disk directly in SanSymphony."

"We are waiting for container support (on the roadmap), as well as a user-friendly full web-administration capability, and an improved API."

More DataCore SANsymphony cons

"The config could be a little easier. It's not entirely difficult, but it could be a somewhat easier. I have seen other vendors make it easier."

"There is a lot a lot of functional integration that we look forward to for improvements. I'm learning where they're going and I'm very interested to see those improvements and how they can help us."

"I wish tech support would be better. I wish I could talk to somebody more easily and qualified, because this is way it is supposed to be.."

"Technical support is hit or miss sometimes. Level 1 support is not very good. Level 2 and Level 3 (the escalation support) are very good. They are knowledgeable people, but sometimes you get some hiccup in the Level 1 support. After you pass Level 1, it is smooth sailing. There is a lot of room for improvement."

"One of the challenges we have is the ability to tag data with ownership for internal billing and chargeback. We have to utilize some third-party tools for that. It would be good if they were integrated with NetApp ONTAP. Everything else is pretty good."

"We had a few small issues with setup, but once everything was done it just worked."

"It's very expensive."

"There is room for improvement in areas related to hardware constraints—for example, more storage efficiency, especially in terms of deduplication."

More NetApp ONTAP cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is at the same level as other storage solutions and it is easy to understand the licensing."

"It is relatively expensive, and the additional costs for hardware and storage can make it a significant investment for customers."

"In my case, the licensing per terabytes is very high and it must be licensed for each extra functionality."

"This product has a good ratio between quality and price. In many cases, it's less expensive to work with DataCore than other storage systems."

"This solution allows the use of off-the-shelf hardware and charges by the TB of storage."

"Make sure you are made aware of the annual subscription cost when purchasing."

"Pricing has improved but it is still expensive."

"We have licensing costs on a yearly basis. They charge per terabyte, so in terms of cost, it can be very costly. They have three different features, and you have to pay extra for those."

More DataCore SANsymphony pricing and cost advice

"We receive the best support for a lower price point."

"We received a super deal for our new machine, so we were happy with the price."

"The product is a bit expensive."

"I rate NetApp ONTAP's pricing a seven out of ten."

"They could reduce the price."

"The price point is very competitive and inexpensive compared to what you receive from other vendors in the market."

"If you start narrowing down NetApp versus price point, then comparing it to the feature set and take away all the bloat that other companies will try to add on, there is no other option. It comes down to just NetApp."

"The solution has helped us reduce the overall cost of storage by doing an OPEX agreement with NetApp, we are paying based on utilization. Instead of fronting 30 petabytes worth of storage, we are paying for what we're using."

More NetApp ONTAP pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

21%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

20%

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?

The cost changed from a perpetual license to a subscription model, and it seems reasonable. I am technical personnel and not deeply involved in sales, but the pricing appears fine.

See all answers

What do you like most about DataCore SANsymphony?

The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are a lot of counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress).

See all answers

What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?

In my opinion, there should be improvements in how to get and filter logs. However, this is not a frequent need because they have great support that offers quick and knowledgeable assistance. Other...

See all answers

How does Azure NetApp Files compare to NetApp ONTAP?

Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft Azure file storage service built on NetApp technology. The platform combines the file capabilities of Azure and NetApp to move critical file-based applications to ...

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp ONTAP?

We do not face any glitches or downtime.

See all answers

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

NetApp ONTAP is moderately priced. The tag price is more competitive for the value we get.

See all answers

Comparisons

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 13% of the time

VMware vSAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 13% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 10% of the time

StarWind Virtual SAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 8% of the time

More DataCore SANsymphony Competitors

Dell PowerPath vs NetApp ONTAP

Compared 19% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp ONTAP

Compared 19% of the time

Cloudian HyperStore vs NetApp ONTAP

Compared 11% of the time

More NetApp ONTAP Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony

March 2025

Download DataCore SANsymphony product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp ONTAP

March 2025

Download NetApp ONTAP product report

Also Known As

DataCore Virtual SAN

No data available

Overview

Experience peace of mind with DataCore SANsymphony, the ultimate software-defined storage solution alleviating storage management challenges. Say goodbye to the complexities of managing different storage tiers and disruptions with SANsymphony's block-level storage virtualization technology, empowering you to automate capacity provisioning and data placement across diverse storage environments including SAN, DAS, HCI, and JBOD. Break down silos, control data placement, meet business continuity objectives, boost performance, and seamlessly expand or refresh hardware with SANsymphony. Benefit from features like asynchronous replication for disaster recovery, minimizing data loss, accelerating application responsiveness, and integrating new technology non-disruptively. Trusted by industry leaders like NASA, Thorntons, Inc., and TUI Cruises, DataCore SANsymphony guarantees unparalleled flexibility, scalability, and reliability, ensuring uninterrupted data access and application availability while reducing storage costs and inefficiencies.

DataCore

NetApp is the data authority for hybrid cloud. We provide a full range of hybrid cloud data services that simplify management of applications and data across cloud and on-premises environments to accelerate digital transformation. Together with our partners, we empower global organizations to unleash the full potential of their data to expand customer touchpoints, foster greater innovation and optimize their operations.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Volkswagen , Maimonides Medical Center, NASA, Thorntons, Inc., TUI, ISCO Industries, Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, United Financial Credit Union, Derby Supply Chain Solutions, Mission Community Hospital, Bellarmine College Preparatory, Colby-Sawyer College, Mount Sinai Health System, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Quorn Foods, Bitburger, University of Birmingham, Stadtverwaltung Heidelberg, NetEnt to name a few.

1&1 IONOS, Acıbadem Healthcare Group, Adder Technologies, Aero Vodochody Aerospace

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony vs. NetApp ONTAP

March 2025

Free Report: DataCore SANsymphony vs. NetApp ONTAP

Find out what your peers are saying about DataCore SANsymphony vs. NetApp ONTAP and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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