NetApp FAS Series Reviews

SyncMirror (for legacy to new platform migration, prior to CDOT availability), SnapManager Suite (for application aware data protection features, namely Oracle and Microsoft), FlashCache & FlashPools (for accelerating workloads, volumes and/or entire aggregates).

A customer was running legacy FAS3140's, 5+ years old, and began deploying VDI clients on their 10GbE network. Their storage became a bottleneck and seamlessly migrated to FAS8020's w/ FlashCache and all performance concerns have been removed, and users have complimented the performance improvement of their desktops!

I'm a VAR and have been recommending FAS for 4+ years

None

None

None

Very high. Local field support came onsite to the customer not to sell anything, but to introduce the support system at NetApp, and how everything works under the covers.

Not much was needed for this particular client; however, tech support when needed has been very responsive and knowledgeable.

No

Client handled, but very straightforward.

Long time NetApp customer, very happy with the solution.

Enterprise Storage for:

• Block and file
• SQL Server LUNs
• Exchange LUNs
• VM Storage. 

Backup of above via Snap products.

• Rock solid reliability
• Easy to use
• Very easy to expand disks and manage CIFS.
• It has been over seven years with no outages.

• SnapManagers for SQL
• Exchange and Oracle
• SnapMirror for DR
• CIFS management for shares/permissions

• Add wizards for newer, inexperienced users. 
• More modern GUI, not that it's bad. 
• ONTAP upgrades need to be much easier.

Enables us to handle business critical data with HA.

• NAS stability
• Simple customer support

Needs more SAN support.

No stability issues yet.

No scalability issues yet.

Eight out of 10.

Works on administration, not implementation.

Not overrated, though there are products available in market with comparatively lower costs.

Good for NAS and unified solutions.

• Reliability
• Rich features
• Ease of management
• Excellent support

A reliable and easily managed storage system is a key performance factor. The system also has more features than we require.

Naturally, there would be room for improvement. As I see it, there could be more interfaces, more cache, etc., but those challenges are solved by just getting some other model.

Four years.

None whatsoever.

No issues, as expansion was a breeze.

We do use third party support. On a scale of one to 10, I would rate the support to be an eight.

During the years, we have had quite a few storage solutions, none of which did give us the same level performance, reliability, and manageability as the FAS-series has.

The initial setup was quite easy and pleasing. Just enter some key values and there you go.

For a number of years now, purchasing a storage system has been actually purchasing software. There is no plain storage anymore, more or less intelligent software solutions. Thus, licenses are required to fulfill the business demands. One considering between different storage system should carefully investigate what software options they get bundled in and what optional software they actually would need. Most storage vendors also have software, or licensing bundles, which may offer the required licenses considerably cheaper, but do also maybe offer licenses, which are not needed.

No other solutions were evaluated at the time. Actually, this system was familiar to use and fulfilled the business demands.

You really can't go wrong with NetApp products, They perform well, are rock solid, offer good space saving technologies, and the support is above par.

It changed the way we do Disaster Recovery (DR) around NetApp replication.

• Cluster mode needs to be more ubiquitous.
• The process for going to cluster mode is expensive.

Unexpected costs and some systems were not compatible with cluster mode.

Yes, we encountered stability issues with the LDAP integration and with user logins on the web front-end.

Nope.

The customer service is awesome.

The technical support is great. The partner company (Bytes) has a close relationship with us.

The initial setup was straightforward, though there were a lot of hidden costs going to cluster mode and the amount of usable data was way lower than expected.

We used a vendor team, and they were excellent.

EMC.

Double up on the amount of storage that you expect to buy.

What impressed me the most about these systems are their excellent reliability, ease of administering (both in GUI and command line), and their very good documentation that is easy to access and understand. It provides very good storage, High Availability, and data protection by employing the use of two separate storage controllers that can take over each other's role as soon as any of them goes down. The technology has been improved even more after the introduction of the cluster cDot ONTAP OS.

NetApp systems are a good choice if you want a versatile unified system that's also capable of delivering performance. Our company has been using NetApp filers both as file sharing solutions (CIFS over LAN) and also as block storage (LUNs) for VMware ESXi hosts.

Since we switched to the newer 2552 models, we now benefit from better data protection and improved storage capacity thanks to the clustered Data ONTAP OS.

The thing we'd like to see the most is the possibility of pairing LAN/SAN ports from different nodes. Currently, the systems only provide pairing (and thus redundancy) only at same-node level. Also, it wouldn't hurt having this sort of cross-functionality when it comes to choosing disks for aggregate structures. Right now, you can't integrate in the same storage aggregate disks from different shelves.

I've had the chance to work a lot with NetApp FAS 2552 series and also have some experience with older models such as 2050, 2040, 3240 and 2240. I think it's a pretty reliable unified storage solution. The FAS 2552 model, especially, offers good performance and excellent reliability. My experience with similar storage systems is, currently, somewhat limited however.

My company has been using NetApp for a few years now, over four I think, and I have come into contact with this technology for over a year.

When it comes to deployment we had our share of issues. Some of these issues are to blame on the vendor's lack of experience with the new models and ONTAP versions, but sometimes the systems themselves were faulty.

The most recent issue we had involves a LAN card that couldn't be set on the correct bandwidth setting. In consequence, the vendor had to replace one of the node's motherboard.

There have been no issues with scaling it, other than during the actual deployment of new devices.

If you buy NetApp systems from third-party vendors, then you would be surprised that their technicians aren't exactly up to date with the latest ONTAP versions. NetApp releases new versions (with great improvements) so often that it's hard for some vendors to stay up to date with their technical knowledge base.

However, when it comes to technical support from NetApp directly, they tend to have a very competent team and the reaction time is pretty decent. Perhaps their biggest strong point in this chapter is their public knowledge base which helps you solve on your own most of issues you can encounter with configuring and administering.

All I can say is that if you take your time and study the NetApp documentation, you shouldn't have any issue, provided the initial setup was done properly by the vendor technician.

Initial setup is usually performed by NetApp or the third-party vendor from whom you purchased the devices. Our experience with third-party vendors isn't the best due to reasons stated above. All other configuration and administration is done in-house.

When it comes to software licensing, I think that NetApp promotes a very fair system. Basically you only pay for the features you need (eg.: Cluster Mode, SnapMirror, SnapVault, etc.).

The best advice I can offer is to try and purchase it directly from NetApp in order to have a better chance of having a successful initial configuration from the first try. Also, make sure you purchase the system with a General Availability OS version as Release Candidate ones tend to be bugged.

• 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.

• 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.