NetApp FAS Series Reviews

The product has been pretty stable. Though we have had a few issues, not on the ones that we are going to replace, but on a couple of other ones. On the ones that we are going to replace, we usually use them for file storage and Exchange. The others are mainly used for interface and iSCSI.

It has been a pretty stable environment, but over time our requirements have changed. Therefore, I don't think it's an issue with the system. We have put a lot of load on a lot more than what it can handle. So, it has taken a performance hit. I wouldn't put it down to there being an issue with NetApp. It's simply because it has more load on it than it can handle, so it has taken a performance hit. 

The only downside is in ease in management; it is not easy to use.

It is good to have a unified storage where you can have block and file level protocols. It has been pretty stable, but the capacity requirements have changed overtime. Our utilization has been very high, so the performance has taken a hit, which is why we are replacing it.

• Ease of management needs to be improved.
• The power consumption for the FAS is a lot more compared to the new SSD arrays.

Going forward, I don't want to be using the FAS again. I want to be using AFFs more.

It has been pretty stable. It has been pretty good, and when we have issues, the support has been great as well. 

I am pretty happy with the system, and the performance issues that we are experiencing have nothing to do with the NetApp system. It's simply because it has more load than it can handle.

The scalability is pretty good, but it's too expensive.

Technical support is cooperative and good.

We were previously using an old IBM SAN. We switched because we wanted to moved to a unified system.

We had a reseller set it up for us, simply because it was a little too complicated.

It's not a cheap system. It is very expensive. The pricing has been ridiculous every time that we had to renew the support. Initially, we have a three-year support contract when we bought the system, but the subsequent renewal of maintenance was ridiculous. This is why we have not been too keen on NetApp.

I wouldn't recommend NetApp FAS. I don't understand why anyone would go for NetApp FAS when you can get the NetApp AFF, which is an SSD array, for almost a similar price or probably even cheaper.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor:

• Cost effective solution
• Performance
• Reliability
• A good roadmap.

Creating a DR site using SnapMirror technology from NetApp.

• NetApp improved our organization because their features are more friendly and create environment to tests, like dev. The FlexClone technology is easy to use.
• The flexibility to create scheduling backups on the VMware platform is very useful when you need it. We can save space using VSC.
• The migration of the volume on the cluster is very useful and easy to use.
• It is very useful to verify performance problems on the any environment and move volumes to another aggregate without downtime to the application.
• Compression of the backup Oracle by RMAN on NFS saves space 5:1, for example.

• Flexibility.
• Saves space with deduplication.
• All protocols on the same box. This means that you don't need to have a appliance to export. For example, an NFS volume on CIFs volume.
• Easy integration to some cloud environments, like Amazon AWS.
• Deduplication, now on cluster mode, runs on aggregate and no more on volume only. This means that you must put all their VMware environments on the same aggregate. If you have volume from prod, dev, and homolog that shares the same virtual machine, you will have a big gain on space saving.

NetApp for all these years has been improving their storage.

The only area that could be improved is to lower prices for their All Flash FAS.

You must have "flash cash" if you used the box to Oracle, any database environment, or any application that requires a lot of reads all time.

We have used some solutions like Hitachi, Dell, and EMC, but NetApp has more flexibility and we decided to stay with NetApp.

• My first case was migrate all solutions from Hitachi Storage to NetApp FAS on SAN with brocade.
• Migrated all VMware environment to NetApp storage.
• Migrated all backup solutions that were running on Veritas Backup to VSC on NetApp.
• Migrated our whole Oracle database running on HDS storage to NetApp storage.

Setup is very easy, but you need a partner to execute your first configuration, after that the administration is easy.

The first setup must be done by any partner or a NetApp field engineer.

The price it not low, but comparing features to other vendors, the price can be balanced.

It gives us the flexibility to work with all protocols on the same Storage Box. The WAFL (Write Anywhere File Layout) is the best feature implemented on this storage solution. Also, the DataONTAP is very reliable and stable, and I haven't had any problems yet. If you configure NetApp using the best practices, you should not have any issues with the performance. Lastly, the de-duplication works very well with all applications in a VMware environment, and you will save a lot of space. In my experience we save more than 80% of the space using deduplication on the volume, and if you have allflash fas you will have gain of the 3:1 and 4:1 on the your storage on the all environment without lost performance.

All the protocols on the same box can solve all the configurations problems. They also help centralize and simplify all connections into one box.

The feature snapmirror is too simple to configure and it is the best way to configure one storage environment with High Availability site to site.

Unify all backup software on the single tool to simplify the administration.

I've been using NetApp products for Ten years, and currently i am working with models FAS6220, FAS8020 using all softwares available...

I don´t find issues yet

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

10/10.

10/10.

In the past, I used, and still work with, solutions like Fujitsu and Hitachi, but when I have an opportunity to work with a NetApp solution, I don't want to go back. That's because the NetApp solutions give me more flexibility to work.

I think it is easy, because I have implemented NetApp in the past. I don't know if someone without work experience would be able to execute the initial setup. However, if you apply best practices, you should not have an issue.

I have experienced both in-house and vendor team implementations. Whenever it is done by the vendor, they are 10/10.

The ROI for NetApp is good, and if you use it on a VMware environment, the ROI will be even greater, and if you get the new solution Allflash FAS you will have a big gain of the storage like 3:1, 4:1 and many more dependending on the your application.

The price, sometimes, is very high, but the ROI is guaranteed.

Ye I did, but I didn't find another solution that could centralize all the protocols into one box without an appliance.

Study the NetApp solutions, and before you implement be sure to do PoCs.

Today we use it for replication of our transaction data, and for storing data, for which we use the snap mirror feature. Primary and disaster recovery storage centers are connected. Snap mirror backup software does block level copy from primary site to the disaster recovery.

We’re going onto the cDot platform, which is already an improvement. The controllers are faster so we have more processing efficiency.

We’ve been using it for the last six years.

Stability has been very good. As far as we’re concerned, we update our systems (firmware, OS) consistently, so we don’t face any problems in that regard.

We've had no problems scaling. Our business has grown two and half times in size over six years, and we’ve added more disks and shelves, as well as upgrading controllers. We’ve done it without any down time.

Quite good. Recently we deployed micro-clusters with cDot, the first bank in India to do it.

It was complex because we experimented by keeping data and system volumes separate. We don’t replicate the system volumes frequently. We were able to do it, although we used only 1/10 of the bandwidth with a combination of FAS and vSphere.

Configure it properly. Today we have HA with any data loss because we did it nicely, and took our time for the beginning. We got terrific support.

• Snapshot
• Snapmirror
• FlexClone

• Huge time savings
• Large storage space savings
• In the end—time and money

They should make it faster and cheaper, but it does what we need it to do.

Good overall. We’ve hit some bugs in the ONTAP code that’s caused it to crash. We’re just coming off of seven-mode, and I'm looking forward to the capabilities of CDOT.

It's highly scalable, especially with CDOT. We can scale out quickly.

It's very good, generally first tier are wiling to help us or get us to right person pretty quickly.

It was complicated. We were coming off an IBM system five years ago. We got help for everything from cabling, terminology, and we had to relearn how we reconfigured storage. We got help from both NetApp and our VAR.

Just do it. Chances are the functionality that comes with the ONTAP software will be better than other products at a similar price.

The flexibility to use in OpenStack with multiple data types, Cinder, Swift, etc.

Feasibility to use multiple protocols to talk to device, be it direct attached or Cinder/Swift, and the ability to use it as storage behind guest instances on cloud (commonly known as boot-from-disk).

When speaking with the NetApp CEO, we told him that we need better documentation for customers to understand automation of APIs. We want it all there and robust. Boot-from-disk allows me to use disk from Netapp, and understand how to set that up should be documented so I can teach my staff how to do that.

We've been using NetApp products for 15 years.

No issues encountered.

As we continue forward, we can add additional heads with same IOPS.

I've never had to call tech support, but we’ve had them call us to tell us we were about to have a problem.

It was very straightforward with OpenStack, very well-documented, and supported. I wasn’t an OpenStack admin when I started, so the ease of use was critical to me. Straight from the horizon dashboard from OpenStack and I was up and running in 15 minutes

1. Define use cases because we’ve come across where we didn’t do so correctly, and we had to go back and re-architect everything. This was our failure.
2. Really engage with NetApp to understand how you use the nuances of things like the APIs.

I use NetApp FAS Series for servers. I have a lot of virtual servers connected through it using a Brocade switch.

I have found all the features useful in NetApp FAS Series.

I have been using NetApp FAS Series for approximately eight years.

The solution is highly stable.

NetApp FAS Series is stable in production storage and for the high-density volume services.

NetApp FAS Series is scalable.

We have approximately 500 users that use this solution in my organization.

We use NetApp FAS Series extensively in our organization and plan to upgrade it for SSD to be faster. We are running our production server on this storage and we use it every second of the day.

We are not able to connect to the support of NetApp from Sudan. We have to go through many agents for support, which makes it difficult.

We previously used NAS storage and it was not stable.

NetApp FAS Series is very expensive for us here in Sudan because we cannot purchase it from the vendor directly.

We have three or four people that do maintenance and support of NetApp FAS Series.

It is a one-time license charge for NetApp FAS Series to run and we pay annually for upgrades and support.

I rate NetApp FAS Series a ten out of ten.

• Redundancy
• Snap mirroring
• Home-drive capability, which looks at a user name and gives the correct rights to folder

• Rendundancy
• Security

We hold a lot of information for our customers, so the information has to be secure and reliable.

I'm not sure, because every time I’ve gone to them, they’ve said “yes, we can do that.”

I sleep well at night because of its redundancy. I hardly even know when it has a bad drive. The Call Home capability sends a message automatically if there's a bad drive to NetApp who then sends a new drive.

Amazing how scalable it is. As a comparison, we looked at EMC vBlock as well, and if you want to upgrade, you have to use a forklift. With FAS, you just put in new shelves or heads.

They’re extremely technical. Everyone I’ve talked to has been very knowledgeable, and I can’t say anything bad.

It was complex. There's a lot to do, but I had their assistance and went through everything step by step. So while complex, it was also simple.

One thing that burned me, is that it surprised me how much overhead it uses, like 30% right off the top. So don’t forget the overhead. It’s not usable space, but that percentage is coming down. It all has to do with deduplication.