AWS Snowball vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and NetApp are both solutions in the Cloud Migration category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.2, while NetApp is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.0. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 0.9% mindshare in CM, compared to NetApp’s 14.3% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

AWS Snowball

Read 10 AWS Snowball reviews

3,177 Views
32 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Read 63 NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP reviews

4,607 Views
921 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

AWS Snowball

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and AWS Snowball compete in data management and transfer solutions. ONTAP appears to have the upper hand in data reliability and management features, while Snowball excels in physical data migration capabilities.

Features: NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP includes advanced features like SnapMirror, SnapVault, and flexible data management. It is recognized for high availability, ease of management, and cost reduction through compression. AWS Snowball's key features are its physical data transfer capabilities, scalability, and robust security measures, including end-to-end encryption.

Room for Improvement: NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP can improve cloud integration, support services, and licensing flexibility. Users mention challenges with scaling and cloud deployment processes. AWS Snowball could benefit from better connectivity options, improved geographical availability, and enhanced security measures during transit.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP provides hybrid support with flexible deployment across cloud environments but receives mixed reviews on initial support levels. AWS Snowball offers efficient support during deployment but could improve its initial support interactions.

Pricing and ROI: NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is competitively priced, offering substantial cost savings through storage efficiencies and tiering, making it suitable for large-scale data needs. AWS Snowball provides affordable pricing models that cater to diverse migration needs, with both solutions presenting strong ROI through their unique advantages.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Snowball vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Snowball vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

July 2025

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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

AWS Snowball

Ranking in Cloud Migration

12th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Migration Appliances (1st)

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Ranking in Cloud Migration

1st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Storage (2nd), Cloud Backup (13th), Public Cloud Storage Services (7th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Cloud Migration category, the mindshare of AWS Snowball is 0.9%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is 14.3%, down from 17.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Migration

Featured Reviews

Kevin-Davis

Global CTO AWS Business Group at Eviden

Seamless data transfer and efficient migration with customizable storage sizes

I like that I can take data and send it straight to S3 when it loads in. The interface for getting my data onto the Snowball is so streamlined. I don't know if you've ever seen it before. It's really cool. I connect them to the backplane of our existing network. I'm able to address it quickly and move the data quickly inside my customers' data centers. There's a little screen on it, which changes the UPS codes and all that stuff. The label and everything AWS electronic, so I don't have to deal with shipping issues. It makes it super simple and easy to use from end to end.

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Punit Waghela

Technical Specialist at Softcell Technologies Limited

Offers advanced features with notable emphasis on innovation

The best features of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP include deduplication, compaction, and autonomous ransomware technology that native cloud storage solutions in AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud do not support. Moreover, NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP allows the use of multiple protocols including NFS, CIFS, and iSCSI, whereas native options may only support NFS and iSCSI. Customers already using on-premises NetApp storage such as FAS, AFF, or ASA can experience the same functionality on the cloud with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, which adds significant value. For data protection, customers can take advantage of the Snapshot technology available with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP. This technology facilitates data recovery by allowing snapshots to be stored either on the same storage or on a disaster recovery (DR) storage. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP helps us to take snapshots and store them on the same storage, with options for migration or replication of those snapshots to different storage, including on-premises DR storage or other cloud storage, providing excellent disaster recovery capabilities.

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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 solution is elastic."

"The most valuable features of AWS Snowball for me are its security measures and its flexibility."

"The features I like best are the tool's high capacity, scalability, end-to-end encryption for data security, ease of use, durability, and cost-effectiveness. It's particularly cost-effective for transferring large amounts of data compared to high-speed internet transfers."

"You are able to scale the solution vertically. It's very scalable."

"The solution is elastic."

"AWS helps save time and costs, being a managed cloud provider with evolving services."

"It's a nice way of shipping a lot of data without using a network."

"The flexibility of AWS Snowball is valuable. Its security allows for the ability to move and secure data without concern if the device is lost and the option to trace it back to AWS data centers."

More AWS Snowball pros

"The most valuable features are that it's reliable, simple, and performs well."

"The ease of use in terms of how the product works is valuable. We are able to work with it and deploy the storage that we need."

"The Cloud Manager application that's on the NetApp cloud site is easy to use. You can set up and schedule replications from there, so you don't have to go into the ONTAP system. Another feature we've recently started using is the scheduled power off. We started with one client and have been slowly implementing it with others. We can cut costs by not having the VM run all the time. It's only on when it's doing replication, but it powers off after."

"ONTAP has been very stable for us, specifically in the cloud environment. It allows us to have high availability as well as standalone systems if that's what we want within our specific workloads. Also, on-premise has been a very stable environment. We have very few outages and when we do, we work with support to get systems back online in a timely manner."

"In terms of administration, the portal which provides the dashboard view is an excellent tool for operations. It gives you volume divisions, usage rates, which division is using how much data, and more. The operations portal is fantastic for the support team."

"Its functionality and technical support are adequate to help prevent failure due to errors."

"It is much easier to control data since we can run queries across all our platforms with just one solution. Not only that, we can also monitor all the platforms with Active IQ, where we can see all the alerts, messages, and space consumption through a single application. This is regardless if the data is on-prem or AWS. It is much more efficient."

"NetApp's Integration with AWS has helped us because we had a tough time transferring data when we used an ONTAP competitor as our storage partner. They don't have integration with AWS tools, so we had to figure it out on our own. ONTAP has built-in integration and allows us to replicate a copy to our second data center."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pros

Cons

"It's not cheap."

"The stability of the solution isn't ideal and should be improved."

"It would be helpful if Snowball provided more kinds of connectivity. That will make it easier to add and move data."

"If AWS Snowball is intercepted, there is a potential risk of unauthorized access to the data."

"The costs of services the customer needs also matter, such as storage requirements and whether storage is rational."

"24/7 support is more expensive on AWS compared to Azure."

"I think AWS Snowball could improve by expanding its availability to more countries."

"There's always room for improvement as you use the service more and gain expertise. Some challenges I've faced include the time factor (data transfer can be time-consuming), data validation after the transfer, risks associated with physical handling and shipping of the device, and ensuring data security during transit."

More AWS Snowball cons

"NetApp's support could improve"

"I would like to see more aggressive management of the aggregate space. On the Cloud Volumes ONTAP that we use for offsite backup copies, most of the data sits in S3. There are also the EBS volumes on the Cloud Volumes ONTAP itself. Sometimes what happens is that the aggregate size just stays the same. If it allocates 8 terabytes initially, it just stays at 8 terabytes for a long time, even though we're only using 20 percent of that 8 terabytes. NetApp could undersize that more aggressively."

"When it comes to a critical or a read-write-intensive application, it doesn't provide the performance that some applications require, especially for SAP. The SAP HANA database has a write-latency of less than 2 milliseconds and the CVO solution does not fit there. It could be used for other databases, where the requirements are not so demanding, especially when it comes to write-latency."

"If they could include clustering together multiple physical Cloud Volumes ONTAP devices as an option, that could be helpful."

"NetApp CVO needs to have more exposure and mature further before it will have greater acceptance."

"They definitely need to stay more on top of security vulnerabilities. Our security team is constantly finding Java vulnerabilities and SQL vulnerabilities. Our security team always wants the latest security update, and it takes a while for NetApp to stay up to speed with that. That would be my biggest complaint."

"I would like to see better integration with Active IQ."

"The key feature, that we'd like to see in that is the ability to sync between regions within the AWS and Azure regions. We could use the cloud sync service, but we'd really like that native functionality within the cloud volume service."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's not a cheap solution, but the price is right for the product."

"The tool's pricing depends on the type of Snowball device you choose, the amount of data you need to transfer, and the service fees involved. There’s a standard price for larger data transfers and a flat job fee, which includes the first ten days of on-site usage. Typically, there are no additional data transfer fees."

"Our licensing is based on a yearly subscription. That is an additional cost, but because of the storage efficiencies that the NetApp gives, even with the additional cost of the NetApp license, you still end up saving money versus straight Azure native for storage. It's definitely worth it."

"Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was good, but it was a test system, not a real purchase."

"The cost is quite high."

"They give us a good price for CVO licenses. It is one of the reasons that we went with the product."

"The pricing could be improved. It is a good product, but it is very expensive for me."

"They allow a special price if you are working closely with them. Since we have a lot of NetApp systems, we got some kind of discount. That's something they do for other customers, not just for us. The price was fair. In addition to the licensing fees, you're paying Amazon for your usage..."

"Make sure you investigate what your requirements are going to cost you using the native cloud solutions versus what NetApp is going to cost you, to make sure you have a business case to go with NetApp."

"Once we deploy the pay as you go model, we cannot convert this product as a BYOL model. This is a concern that we have."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

17%

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Microsoft Azure Data Box or AWS Snowball?

Microsoft Azure Databox is a 45-pound, super rugged, tamper-resistant, human-managed hardware appliance that can transfer up to 100TB of data capacity to copy, store, then send to the Azure cloud. ...

See all answers

What do you like most about AWS Snowball?

The most valuable features of AWS Snowball for me are its security measures and its flexibility.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Snowball?

Depending of what is your priority; UseAWS Snowball if you are heavily invested in AWS or need edge computing features Choose Azure Data Box for smooth integration with Azure and potentially lower ...

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the license consumption and also the consumption of the underlying cloud storage.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is actually quite reasonable in price compared to other native cloud storage options. For example, a customer using 100 TB of AWS storage would not benefit from deduplica...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP does have a bit of initial complexity for users who are new to the system. Although it isn't overwhelmingly complex, first-time users may find it challenging until they b...

See all answers

Comparisons

Google Transfer Appliance vs AWS Snowball

Compared 50% of the time

Microsoft Azure Data Box vs AWS Snowball

Compared 39% of the time

IBM Cloud Mass Data Migration vs AWS Snowball

Compared 5% of the time

Palantir Foundry vs AWS Snowball

Compared 3% of the time

AWS Snowball Edge vs AWS Snowball

Compared 2% of the time

More AWS Snowball Competitors

Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 16% of the time

Amazon S3 vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon FSx vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 6% of the time

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Snowball

August 2025

Download AWS Snowball product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

August 2025

Download NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP product report

Also Known As

Amazon AWS Snowball, Amazon Snowball, Snowball

ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO

Overview

Snowball is a petabyte-scale data transport solution that uses devices designed to be secure to transfer large amounts of data into and out of the AWS Cloud. Using Snowball addresses common challenges with large-scale data transfers including high network costs, long transfer times, and security concerns. Customers today use Snowball to migrate analytics data, genomics data, video libraries, image repositories, backups, and to archive part of data center shutdowns, tape replacement or application migration projects. Transferring data with Snowball is simple, fast, more secure, and can be as little as one-fifth the cost of transferring data via high-speed Internet.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is an efficient storage management solution for managing and storing data in the cloud. It offers seamless integration with cloud providers, advanced data replication capabilities, and high data protection. With reliable performance, it is ideal for industries like healthcare and finance.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Wazee Digital, Craftsy, Live Nation, Essess

1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard

Buyer's Guide

AWS Snowball vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

July 2025

Free Report: AWS Snowball vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

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