Dell PowerPath vs NetApp ONTAP comparison

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the Storage Software category. Dell Technologies is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.8, while NetApp is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7. Dell Technologies holds a 24.0% mindshare in SS, compared to NetApp’s 45.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerPath

Read 8 Dell PowerPath reviews

163 Views
50 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NetApp ONTAP

Read 76 NetApp ONTAP reviews

833 Views
240 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Dell PowerPath

NetApp ONTAP

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerPath 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 Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP

January 2025

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Helped 831,158 peers since 2012

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

Dell PowerPath

Ranking in Storage Software

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

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 January 2025, in the Storage Software category, the mindshare of Dell PowerPath is 24.0%, up from 21.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp ONTAP is 45.2%, up from 42.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Storage Software

Featured Reviews

Derrick Brockel

Senior Manager of Operations at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

A resilient and reliable solution that has many load-balancing technologies and provides high availability

People who want to buy the solution must create a scorecard of Dell PowerPath against other products. They must run database tests. They must consider factors like pricing, performance, ease of use, visibility, and reliability. They must also run tests to understand which product recovers faster. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

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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.

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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

"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that disaster recovery scenarios are very good and easy to use in Dell PowerPath since it is available in a simplified form."

"It provides a high availability and will increase the performance of any server or operating system."

"We have found the solution to be quite flexible and very scalable."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is migration without disruptions."

"OS-aware multipathing is a valuable feature of the product."

"The user interface is good."

"The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy."

"The product is very reliable."

"If you lose connectivity, it has one-sided redundant connectivity on the back-end for shelves, which is good."

"Its ease of use, for the most part, through the interfaces is valuable."

"We are able to minimize the storage hardware. The compression and deduplication have helped reduce our overall cost of storage."

"The scalability is very good. It enables us to use different product lines within the same operating system."

"With the NetApp Data ONTAP Cluster, we get some features that are particularly helpful. For example, we can always add to and remove nodes from the cluster. The ability to move volumes online from the storage side, from one aggregate to another aggregate, or from one node to another node, keeps up the performance which helps us a lot."

"They have very good tech support who always answers our questions and troubleshoots our issues. They're great."

"The initial setup was straightforward. It came in a box ready to go."

"Snapshot and SnapMirror technologies make it easier to replicate data to disaster recovery scenarios."

More NetApp ONTAP pros

Cons

"Customers do not choose PowerPath unless they have Unix or Linux."

"The product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR."

"The solution is quite stable, although they have not quite worked out all of the kinks."

"Although PowerPath is very mature and has been on the market for more than 15 years there are still a lot of bugs that have been profiled with PowerPath, specifically, during any OS upgrade."

"The technical support is good but they are not available all the time."

"While I utilize it for data migration, I would love to do that data migration in a GUI from an ease of use perspective."

"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"The solution should provide extensive reports on backups and backup failures."

"It takes them a few seconds to do a failover. I hope they can reduce this to milliseconds or at least drive it down to less than two seconds. Some of their competitors are already doing this."

"It doesn't scale horizontally since there are a limited number of shelves."

"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."

"I'm waiting for the NVMe, end-to-end."

"The initial setup is too complex. It should be one click. Anyone with basic knowledge of storage should be able to set it up. Instead, there are too many moving pieces."

"With our current use case, we will need something faster. E.g., if you have a huge scale, having SSD-based backup is better."

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

"The vendor diagnostics, which allows for movement from one vendor to another vendor using the application technology that is available. It should be able to talk to any vendor, not just NetApp to NetApp. We should be able to replicate the data, so the next feature should not be vendor specific."

More NetApp ONTAP cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is a little bit expensive."

"I rate the product's price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is affordable, and ten is really expensive. Dell PowerPath is an expensive tool."

"Pricing is good. I don't have any issues with the pricing of this solution."

"The price of the solution is fair."

"The solution is expensive."

"There are no additional costs associated with the product."

"While it is going to cost a lot of money, their technologies is worth it."

"It's very expensive."

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

"The product is a bit expensive."

"With the duplication and compression, we have been about a one and half to two times savings since we are not running all-flash."

"It has been cost-efficient. Compared to our legacy Dell infrastructure, we have realized cost savings. It is good."

"Depending on the licensing you choose the price varies. For our company and our needs, the cost is very fair."

"We have seen ROI as we can fit a lot more storage in one rack."

More NetApp ONTAP pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Healthcare Company

12%

Government

12%

Retailer

10%

Manufacturing Company

20%

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell PowerPath?

The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerPath?

The product is a little bit expensive. It is a little pricey because it provides multipathing with other OSs. I rate the pricing a five out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell PowerPath?

The product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR. When we use 3PAR storage, we have to use another technology to load balance. The product must be integrated with other products l...

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

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Dell PowerPath

Compared 50% of the time

More Dell PowerPath Competitors

DataCore SANsymphony vs NetApp ONTAP

Compared 51% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp ONTAP

Compared 19% of the time

Cloudian HyperStore vs NetApp ONTAP

Compared 12% of the time

More NetApp ONTAP Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerPath

January 2025

Download Dell PowerPath product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp ONTAP

January 2025

Download NetApp ONTAP product report

Also Known As

PowerPath

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Dell Technologies

NetApp

Overview

EMC PowerPath: Host-based software for automated data path management, failover and recovery, and optimized load balancing. PowerPath automates, standardizes, and optimizes data paths in physical and virtual environments as well as cloud deployments to deliver high availability and performance.

AUTOMATE FAILOVER/RECOVERY

PowerPath automates data path failover and recovery to ensure applications are always available and remain operational.

OPTIMIZE LOAD BALANCING

Adjust I/O paths constantly to leverage all available data paths and to monitor and rebalance the dynamic environment for the best application performance.

STANDARDIZE PATH MANAGEMENT

Simplify and standardize data path management across heterogeneous physical and virtual environments as well as cloud deployments.

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.

Sample Customers

Healthcare Residential Service Company

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

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP

January 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP

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