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Dell EqualLogic PS series vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell EqualLogic PS series
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
104
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (4th), NAS (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of Dell EqualLogic PS series is 1.8%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 17.7%, up from 14.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

Abdul Rehman Abid - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful auto tiering, excellent support, and highly reliable
The initial setup of the Dell EqualLogic PS series is simple. The physical connectivity and rack mounting time depend on the size of the deployment. For example, if we have five of the Dell EqualLogic PS series we can mount and do the cabling within two hours. The initial configuration can be done within an hour. The estimated time to deploy from start to finish in this scenario is four to five hours maximum. One person can do most of the deployment, such as configuration, but a helper is needed to do the mounting of the cables.
Paweł Jabłoński - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for VMs with replication a feature, but need upgraded SSDs
We use this solution. I configured and updated it. Of course, I was also a user of applications that store data on that storage. We already have an SSD solution. So, rather than planning to go with an SSD solution, we are focusing on expanding it. If a company wants to deploy something new, it should choose a product with SSD, and NVMe disks. Overall, I rate the solution a six out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is extremely reliable."
"We were attracted by the flexibility of being able to put in a new shelf whenever we needed to, to expand."
"The most valuable feature of Dell EqualLogic PS series auto tiering by using this feature, the customer can get higher performance on a valuable budget."
"The solution has been working well overall."
"Technical support, when we had access to it, was very good."
"If you have one datacenter fail, the VMs will start to run inside the other data center."
"You can always trust it. It is stable."
"The technical support for the solution was really good."
"Compression of the backup Oracle by RMAN on NFS saves space 5:1."
"We can manage our applications from a single dashboard."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its absolute reliability."
"The replication feature is noteworthy because it's faster than most and it uses little bandwidth. Then there's the friendly interface that the equipment offers. With this interface, it is very easy to manage."
"The most important features are SnapVault, Snapshots, and SnapMirror."
"It's an easy product to use that is stable and has good performance."
"Ability to use mirroring and SnapVault have made backup no longer necessary."
"The ONTAP tools make managing VMware easier."
 

Cons

"Why is it not possible for both controllers to be simultaneously active (load balancing)?"
"There is no inline deduplication capability."
"The performance isn't as good as, for example, Nimble."
"We need more space and we can't get any."
"The product is reaching the end-of-lifecycle."
"Synchronous replication uses space inefficiently."
"If I need to have more space or more capacity, I need to replace the product. It would be ideal if we could scale without replacing the box itself."
"There is no option for mixing RAID types in one device."
"It's not a cheap system. It is very expensive. The pricing has been ridiculous every time that we had to renew the support."
"The WAFL is slow."
"The adoption of flash by NetApp has also been lagging behind the trendsetters, like TMS, Nimble, and others."
"We would like to have further integration with some backup products. They have some of them already, but there could be more."
"The solution’s pricing is expensive."
"NetApp FAS Series could improve by being more secure."
"When we were going through all the MFA hardening and the anti-ransomware setup, I gave some feedback to our executive. The MFA process for getting that set up on the AFF systems was cumbersome compared to some of our other systems."
"Needs to improve the adaptive storage quality of service."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing is pretty straightforward."
"I don't think I would say that the product is less expensive...The product's price is not an issue for our company, considering the relationship we have with Dell and the customer support we receive."
"All features are out of the box. The license will be in the virtual, OS, or application layer."
"Dell EqualLogic PS series can improve its scale-out feature. Sometimes the customer has a limited budget for storage expansion. When they want to expand their capacity, they need to buy a complete controller plus storage capacity, which sometimes is out of their budget. If Dell EqualLogic PS series support could scale up the environment in which only hard drive extension controllers should be supported, then customers can expand within a lower budget."
"There are annual maintenance costs beyond the original licensing period."
"Price-wise, the solution is cheap. I rate it a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is very cheap, and ten is very expensive."
"Initial packages include all upgrades and services."
"It seemed expensive at first, but the durability lowered the cost of ownership dramatically over time."
"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."
"It is expensive."
"It is a moderately low-priced platform."
"The scalability is pretty good, but it's too expensive."
"I've sold arrays for as little $20,000 USD and as high as $300,000 USD."
"NetApp FAS Series is a reasonably high-priced solution, partially because we select the configuration that duplicates the entire system."
"It's not cheap, but at the same time, it's also inexpensive. It's somewhere in between."
"The NetApp FAS series price is very competitive compared to other solutions on the market it is a good choice."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Educational Organization
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Real Estate/Law Firm
9%
Educational Organization
62%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell EqualLogic PS series?
The technical support for the solution was really good.
What needs improvement with Dell EqualLogic PS series?
The main issue was that when there were new storage solutions technologies available on the market, Dell EqualLogic PS Series was not compatible with the latest products. Right now, we have a stora...
What is your primary use case for Dell EqualLogic PS series?
I used the solution in my company since we had a virtual infrastructure, which served as our storage array with ESXi connections, which are also integrated with VMware solutions.
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?
Cost is a big factor in our decision-making process. When we're buying storage, the first thing we look at is how much we're paying per gigabyte. Cost has been the driving factor when choosing this...
 

Also Known As

EqualLogic PS series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

FAW Foundry, AW Engineering, Unimat, eLongNet Information Technology, BDO Brasil, Odyssey Space Research
Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell EqualLogic PS series vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
825,609 professionals have used our research since 2012.