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NetApp FAS Series Scalability

MC
Directeur Adjoint Des Systèmes d'Informations& Transition at Mairie de Lunel

The product does improve our performance. It is scalable enough.  

For scalability, we've found that even if you have a three-year-old service... the way NetApp works, we must buy new equipment every five or six years. 

It's as if there's planned obsolescence... we don't have the option to upgrade the solution over a long period. 

So, for scalability, I'd give it an eight out of ten. There was one instance where we needed to add disks, but the filer was full. We ran out of space to physically add them.

We had to buy extra equipment to support adding more disks to the filer when it reached maximum capacity.

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TW
Senior Storage Administrator at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

We could potentially scale up to 52 nodes. However, our most extensive deployment right now consists of 6 nodes.

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DC
Principal Architect Infrastructure Solutions at a recruiting/HR firm with 501-1,000 employees

The product scales really well.

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Buyer's Guide
NetApp FAS Series
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about NetApp FAS Series. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
815,209 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Paweł Jabłoński - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Infrastructure Manager at Bricoman Wilanów

1,000 users are using this solution.

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Muhammad Alihyder Bhuiyan - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of IT Operations at NCC Bank PLC

It is a scalable solution.

My company had around 3,000 users of the solution.

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EA
Manager, System at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

The product does not allow us to add disks. We need to add a completely new disk shelf to scale the product. The solution is suitable for enterprise-level businesses.

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MD
Storage Administrator at Softcell Technologies Limited

It is a scalable product. I've seen it used at a bank in India with a large number of users and also at another customer site with about 250 users.

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Martin Sandell - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Storage Engineer at Basefarm

I find it to be scalable both vertically and horizontally. It's a ten. It's super easy to scale.

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LS
System Administrator at Bechtel Plant Machinery, Inc.

Scalability is not something that I would have much experience in from this location. We're a smaller site with about 1500 users. It's not something that has to be extremely scalable at our location. 

From talking to my coworkers at the larger locations, I believe that NetApp has become more scalable than they have been in the past, so they're going the right direction.

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AlexanderZhuravel - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Network and Server infrastructure department at Sense Bank

4,000-5,000 endpoints are using this solution.

I rate the solution’s scalability a nine out of ten.

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AdrianoSimao - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Project and Infrastructure Service Manager at CEDSIF - Ministry of Finance

We started with two instances, and now we are running four. It was very easy to scale them. We assembled them, connected them, and the business has been running very well.

On the second upgrade that we did, it was quite different because they started licensing based on the capacity of the disks. I thought this was strange, but technically speaking, it was very easy to upgrade the environment with minimal knowledge needed.

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Temitope Oladeji - PeerSpot reviewer
NetApp Product Manager at Hiperdist Ltd

The tool is scalable. It depends on the models, though. The entry-level models have limited scalability.

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Luca Raimondi - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at NUM AG

My impression on the scalability of the NetApp FAS Series is that it's good, but my usage is just below 50%, so scalability is not an issue for me.

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Sarthak Panchal - PeerSpot reviewer
Module Lead - NetApp Admin, CMA at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees

I rate the product’s scalability an eight out of ten.

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PS
Service manager at VST ECS

I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten. It is pretty easy to scale. It's good for medium-sized enterprises and also for larger enterprises.

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MuhammadAli5 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Unit Head at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

The tool is scalable and meets our requirements for TVs. It handles beta bytes well. We are happy with its scalability.

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Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Synergy Computers

The solution is highly scalable. Its FAS2700 series can scale up to more than 1000 terabytes.

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Ozair Amin - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales Manager - Infrastructure at Synergy Computers

I rate the tool’s scalability a ten out of ten. We have almost 100 users in Pakistan. Our customers are medium and enterprise-level businesses.

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RS
System Administrator at ON Semiconductor Phils. Inc.

One of the big features of NetApp FAS is the clustering of storage, which allows you to scale up the whole cluster using different models. This is broad and each HA is expandable.

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it_user332655 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Administrator with 1,001-5,000 employees

I haven’t had to scale in my department, but I foresee change in the near future because we’ll be taking on other portions of the government (medical, for example). Other portions will be somewhat isolated, but there is overlap.

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AC
Broadcast Technology Director at a media company with 501-1,000 employees

Upgrading the data size is easy with the product. My company has 300 users. 

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MohamedAmr - PeerSpot reviewer
Infra Business Development Manager at GBM

The solution is scalable and can be added on to easily if needed.

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it_user3396 - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Lead at Tata Consultancy Services
PM
ICT-I Manager at KTDA

We've had issues with scalability because the product that we were using went end-of-life many years ago, and we were not able to expand because there were no spares available.

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Sourabh Madan - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution architect at Hitachi Systems, Ltd.

The solution is scalable. 

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it_user332607 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Systems Administrator at University of Central Florida

We’re still on 7-mode, but it still scales fairly well as the 6240 is a hefty machine.

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GA
CEO at BDPR Technologies Limited

The NetApp FAS Series is scalable.

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SR
Information Technology IT Manager Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

It is scalable to some extent. There is a limit, but then everything has a limit. We were using it at three sites across the US. We ran into this issue of hitting the limit just once in a while. When you are growing a cluster, you usually hit that limit.

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Ramy Adly - PeerSpot reviewer
HPC & Cloud systems administrator at Brightskies

The solution is scalable to some extent.

We have 400 nodes in one cluster and 1400 nodes in another cluster. Around 800-900 users are using the solution.

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MK
Owner at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

The solution is scalable. It is recommended for medium companies. 

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Temitope Oladeji - PeerSpot reviewer
NetApp Product Manager at Hiperdist Ltd

NetApp FAS Series is a scalable solution. We scale transparently, and we scale out and scale up. If we are scaling up with heavy capacity, it's very simple. Once we loop it, we have it and send it. We don't even have downtime for that. 

Sometimes it's tricky when we need to cluster several controllers and to scale-out many times. But it doesn't really have a major effect on our business. Sometimes we schedule it to let the business know that there might be some downtime for a period. We are finding ways to reduce the impact, and I think it's seamless. If I have to rate it, I'll give it 85%.

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CP
Sr. Sys. Server & Storage Egineer / Tech .Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

The product is scalable. Five or six of our customers are using the solution.

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WC
Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

It acts as it was documented.

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it_user332598 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Storage Engineer at Sirius Computer Solutions

Scalability especially in SMB range has been well-received. So long as the environment is sized correctly, it’s been good.

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AC
Broadcast Technology Director at a media company with 501-1,000 employees

NetApp has a structure that can grow very easily. You can expand by buying suitable model shelves. You can expand by the value allowed by the controller.

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FK
Assistant Director, IT at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

The solution is scalable at the data level because it uses aggregates so you can easily increase data. But of course it's dependent on your provision for growth reports. I don't know how many use the solution but our company has around 600-700 employees and we have two people dealing with maintenance on the product. It doesn't require more than that. 

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it_user281973 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage and VMware Expert at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

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it_user281973 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage and VMware Expert at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

No issues encountered.

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it_user331866 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief General Manager at SVC Bank

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.

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it_user331830 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at PTSO

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

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it_user331812 - PeerSpot reviewer
VP Systems Integrator at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

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

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AO
IT Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

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.

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it_user332616 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of IT Infrastructure at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

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.

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it_user350622 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Administrator - Backup & Storage Specialist at METRO SYSTEMS Romania

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

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it_user332652 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Adminstrator at SRPNet

7-mode scales very well. I’m even more impressed with where they intend to go with cDOT, but it may be rolled out prematurely.

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it_user330081 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Computer Engineer with 1,001-5,000 employees

We haven’t really grown it but I see a roadmap, the only problem there may be cost. It’s not an expensive product per se, but because of budget issues. People sometimes don’t evaluate the cost correctly.

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it_user527118 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Engineer at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees

It is very scalable. It has gotten much more scalable. With every level, it's becoming more and more scalable.

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it_user354033 - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Owner Storage at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

It's scaled well for us.

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VF
IT Manager at a maritime company with 51-200 employees

It's scalable. You can scale as much as you can have.

We have approximately 500 end-users in our organization.

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it_user614595 - PeerSpot reviewer
ICT Network Administrator at a maritime company with 501-1,000 employees

No issues, as expansion was a breeze.

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it_user515505 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
it_user332793 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales - Regional Southern California at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees

Scalability depends on how it’s ordered, which is the job of an integrator and dependent on the customer's needs.

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it_user405642 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Storage Consultant at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees

We've never had an issue with Clustered Data ONTAP, but we did with 7-Mode solutions and large amounts of data in the PB range.

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it_user332619 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Engineer III at Providence Health & Services

Depends on how you’re scaling. If wide, it works well. Vertical scaling not so well because we’re primarily SMB. No matter how brief, people don’t like being offline (e.g. baby monitors).

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it_user330882 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Tech-Architect, Storage at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

It’s good, but you have to do a lot of homework to scale horizontally and vertically. You need to have sales and engineering to expend effort to do that homework.

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SV
Software & Services Advisor at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Caesar Malenga - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Analyst - Infrastructure at Workers' Comp

The solution is scalable. We have not done much scaling but we know it can.

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it_user527277 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Analyst at a local government with 501-1,000 employees

NetApp aggregates are scalable. You can keep adding shelves.

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it_user310452 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

NetApp comes with an OS developed by its engineers, and its clustered data ONTAP, which supports clustering and scalability to a high level.

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it_user793935 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

No scalability issues yet.

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it_user332664 - PeerSpot reviewer
Database Manager at Wilson Trailer

In the last growth, we went from a 3250 to an 8020. We’ve set it up to grow out easily by just adding trays.

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it_user332643 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Data Storage Engineer III at University of Kentucky

Incredibly scalable. Not even touching what it could do. Between scale up and scale out, we’re not even close to reaching its highest potential. We have a four node NAS with the potential for 24 nodes.

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it_user351141 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Administrator at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

It has scaled to our needs.

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it_user346119 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Engineer at a government with 501-1,000 employees

It scales to our needs.

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it_user332604 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Very scalable, haven’t reached its limits.

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it_user332232 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Architect at a aerospace/defense firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

With cDOT, it's very good. It scales horizontally well, but not so well with 7-mode.

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Ramy Adly - PeerSpot reviewer
HPC & Cloud systems administrator at Brightskies

If we needed to scale beyond what we have now, we could do it. I would say NetApp's scalability is sufficient for our needs. We have hundreds of users accessing the file system on a daily basis.

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it_user3396 - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Lead at Tata Consultancy Services
it_user351177 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Technical Architect IT at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We have six PB of data, and have had no problems with scalability.

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it_user332670 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Storage Engineer with 1,001-5,000 employees

It scales to a point, and then you buy more hardware. Doing a head swap (swapping out controllers) is not as easy as it used to be.

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EH
Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

The scalability is also good. You can scale on the fly, just connect the cables. If you're adding a controller or you're adding big shelves, it's easy to move. It's excellent.

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it_user829644 - PeerSpot reviewer
Berater with 11-50 employees

For the use cases I have had so far, scalability has been sufficient. But I don't know where the limits are. If you go into hundreds of millions of objects, you will probably see limits. Also, performance-wise, it's probably not the fastest solution on the market. 

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it_user332259 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Storage Engineer with 1,001-5,000 employees

It’s scalable, but it could be easier. Just adding shelves might require additional cards and cabling, which can be difficult.

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it_user331854 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Administor at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees

I love cluster ONTAP. Being able to scale out and being able to increase performance by adding more heads to a cluster and being able to do hybrid with regular storage on same platform is huge. You can move out easily too, they provide you the tools to do that, adding a lot of value.

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PS
Service manager at VST ECS

The product is scalable.

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EE
Co-founder at Forest Technology

It is easily scalable. You can easily scale up and use old and new products together. NetApp products are very scalable.

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SR
Senior Network Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

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

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it_user352242 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Technician at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

It scales for the kind of customers that we have.

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it_user332244 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a legal firm with 501-1,000 employees

It scales pretty well, and the limit is how much you want to spend on blades, shelves, controllers, etc.

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it_user330924 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Infrastructure Architect at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

With cDOT, it's very easy to scale out, and that's the reason we went with it in the first place.

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MC
CEO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

The solution is scalable.

We have approximately 30 people in my organization using this solution.

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it_user627942 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Infrastructure Manager at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

I'm satisfied with the scalability.

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it_user520506 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Administrator with 1,001-5,000 employees

Yes, we have encountered issues. The system is limited by the number of enclosures.

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Buyer's Guide
NetApp FAS Series
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about NetApp FAS Series. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
815,209 professionals have used our research since 2012.