We performed a comparison between NetApp FAS Series and NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) came out ahead of NetApp FAS Series. Although both products have similar deployment difficulty and quality of support, NetApp FAS Series has fewer valuable features and should move towards adopting more all-flash capabilities.
"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"If you need a replacement part, they will provide it."
"The most valuable features of AFF are its speed and the responsive support from NetApp."
"Setting up storage for an application (storage provisioning) is quick and easy. Maybe a quarter of the time is now spent getting the application up and running, or even less."
"Data efficiency is the most valuable feature because of the dedupe and compression."
"It impacts customer retention because of its overall ease. When you are running a business, where time is a factor, that is the biggest selling point. Things happen really rapidly, when they happen, and being able to say, "Yeah, we can get this up and running in a day, if you want," or even less time in some cases. Sometimes, that can be what makes or breaks our case."
"I like NetApp AFF's deduplication."
"ActiveIQ is the most valuable feature. It's a central point for me to be able to kick into everything every day. I log in first thing and make sure there are no issues, and it helps me with my day-to-day."
"The most valuable feature of NetApp AFF is the reputation of the company."
"It has a very good implementation of the Active Directory services, so implementation into a Windows network is easy."
"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."
"Adaptive balancing is a valuable feature."
"NetApp FAS Series is simple to set up."
"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."
"It's an easy product to use that is stable and has good performance."
"Good for NAS and unified solutions."
"The most valuable feature for us is the combining of HA and SnapMirror."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"The software layer has to improve."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"There is room for improvement in terms of support. I have noticed that if I sometimes call their customer care for a particular issue, they will give me another number and ask me to call that other team. It would be better if they could do a warm transfer. That would save customers time from calling all the numbers again and speaking to another team."
"The SRA stuff that intergrades with SRM is a problem point. It's a pain point. The support personnel aren't always knowledgeable on that product. At times, they are not even aware what product is supported and what is not, when one has been deprecated and there is a new one out, and what the bug fixes of the newer version are."
"I want an interface through ONTAP that look more like what it does for the E-Series with Santricity."
"The system is pretty stable but most of the ONTAP versions are not really stable. There have been multiple bugs in different ONTAP versions."
"Going forward, I would like improvement in the response latencies, capacity size, cache, and controller size."
"The stability is good but there is room for improvement with other options."
"The Bezels need improvement."
"There is room for improvement with the user interface. There are a few things that cannot be done in the GUI. We do a lot of things through the CLI, but that's grown out of a lack of ability to do them in the GUI. An example is QTrees. You can manage them within the GUI, but the GUI is missing a few options."
"I think this kind of infrastructure is mostly obsolete. To keep up with developments in this space, you need to move all these features to an All-Flash solution."
"The adoption of flash by NetApp has also been lagging behind the trendsetters, like TMS, Nimble, and others."
"NetApp needs to put its OS on a microchip rather than on disks."
"The NetApp FAS Series is not as high-performing and is not as fast. Its speed needs improvement, but this could only be done if it's an all-flash solution."
"With scalability, we feel the system is limited."
"Cluster mode needs to be more ubiquitous."
"The high cost of the product is an area of concern, so from an improvement perspective, the tool needs to be made cheaper."
"Replication should ideally be part of the ONTAP base bundle."
NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 281 reviews while NetApp FAS Series is ranked 5th in Deduplication Software with 98 reviews. NetApp AFF is rated 9.0, while NetApp FAS Series is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of NetApp AFF writes "Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp FAS Series writes "Offers good performance and ". NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Pure Storage FlashArray and NetApp ASA, whereas NetApp FAS Series is most compared with Dell PowerScale (Isilon), HPE StorageWorks MSA, Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain), IBM FlashSystem and HPE StoreEasy. See our NetApp AFF vs. NetApp FAS Series report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
