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DataCore SANsymphony vs NetApp ONTAP comparison

DataCore and NetApp are both solutions in the Storage Software category. DataCore is ranked #2 with an average rating of 9.4, while NetApp is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8. DataCore holds a 29.9% mindshare in SS, compared to NetApp’s 41.8% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of DataCore users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of NetApp users who would recommend it.
DataCore SANsymphony
Read 56 DataCore SANsymphony reviews
  • 296 Views
  • 166 Comparison Views
97% willing to recommend
NetApp ONTAP
Read 90 NetApp ONTAP reviews
  • 837 Views
  • 249 Comparison Views
98% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary
We performed a comparison between DataCore SANsymphony and NetApp ONTAP based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Storage Software solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

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To learn more, read our detailed DataCore SANsymphony vs. NetApp ONTAP Report (Updated: April 2025).
Buyer's Guide
DataCore SANsymphony vs. NetApp ONTAP
April 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

DataCore SANsymphony
Ranking in Storage Software
2nd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (5th), HCI (7th), Storage Performance (2nd)
NetApp ONTAP
Ranking in Storage Software
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Storage Software category, the mindshare of DataCore SANsymphony is 29.9%, up from 26.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp ONTAP is 41.8%, down from 42.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Storage Software
 

Featured Reviews

TempreviewerD - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust with good replication and access protection
The solution is constantly evolving. Recently, deduplication and compression have been further improved to meet customer needs, and updates are easily implemented without stopping production. The update assistant checks the state of health before using good practices, during checks that the data is still presented for service continuity, and afterward, if the actions carried out are indeed active. Technical support is truly available even without a production incident. This is really essential right now.
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Christopher Cagayan - PeerSpot reviewer
A solution that comes with several valuable features and excellent SAN storage
NetApp ONTAP is scalable. They have two types of scalability, "scale up" and "scale out." With "scale up," you can get up to petabytes of data if you have the money to buy those servers and add them to the system. And "scale out" also, you can buy additional controllers, up to 12 nodes, which is pretty good when you are a big company. I rate the scalability a nine out of ten. NetApp is one of our organization's main storage systems. Every application is scattered on all of our NetApp devices. Applications won't run without it because they need to pull data from NetApp ONTAP.
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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

"It is a stable solution."
"Our system is designed to be scalable and flexible, so it can grow and adapt to meet the changing needs of our clients."
"DataCore's ability to seamlessly move virtual volume data between storage pools as well as their synchronous mirroring has made maintenance and disaster recovery planning achievable."
"The features I have found most valuable are the active-active, or so-called grid technology, and the integration into our VMware-vCenter."
"The synchronous mirror allows us to operate a fully redundant storage solution that is distributed across two sites."
"The platform's most valuable feature is its synchronous mirroring capability, which ensures bit-identical copies of data and offers excellent failover capacity."
"For us, fault tolerance is the most important feature of DataCore."
"The most valuable feature of DataCore SANsymphony SDS is its high availability. This solution also exhibits good performance and has high stability."
More DataCore SANsymphony pros
"ONTAP has improved my organization by lowering budget costs. Deduplication, compression, compaction, SnapMirror, SnapWall, the transaction happens from one to the other. It's serving our needs just as expected."
"SnapMirror is a good solution, because we can take our production data and replicate it over to our DR data center with minimal administrative effort, which is huge."
"It's very fast, NetApp is always dependable, so if we have an issue, they're very responsive."
"The best features of NetApp ONTAP include its good UI."
"Today, because NetApp listened to their customers and improved their GUI, we can perform a firmware upgrade within minutes."
"We are able to minimize the storage hardware. The compression and deduplication have helped reduce our overall cost of storage."
"The solution is very easy to configure."
"The scalability is very good. It enables us to use different product lines within the same operating system."
More NetApp ONTAP pros
 

Cons

"When I sometimes reboot for maintenance, the connectivity from the iSCSI initiator host could be improved."
"There is no way of quickly matching the exact size of a vDisk to a disk pool."
"I still see room for improvement with DataCore SANsymphony in the area of alarm and task management."
"One area where the solution could improve is its software platform. Many customers have expressed dissatisfaction with the software running on Microsoft Windows."
"I would like to see SMPA (Shared Multi-Port Array) technology developed with the aim of allowing a configuration identical to other storage arrays."
"I'd like to see the company make the renewal of the software cheaper."
"I found it a little unnecessary to have to rename the configurations within the graphics console in order to have unique names."
"DataCore SANsymphony should integrate file servers at a good price into the solution."
More DataCore SANsymphony cons
"I wish tech support would be better. I wish I could talk to somebody more easily and qualified, because this is way it is supposed to be.."
"NetApp ONTAP has several limitations that we encounter, primarily related to large enterprise clients. They do not affect small clients that NetApp may have. While these limitations are clearly described, some issues require us to develop workarounds."
"The price could be lower."
"The config could be a little easier. It's not entirely difficult, but it could be a somewhat easier. I have seen other vendors make it easier."
"Technical support is not in person nowadays. We have to wait a long time to get an engineer. Then, most of the time, their engineers are not good enough to understand our problems. While we might not be able to explain the problem well, or they are not able to understand the problem well, their solutions are slow to resolution. The response time for tickets is bad nowadays."
"The PowerShell scripting capabilities right now are all over the place as far as which rich operating systems are supported. They all support Windows, but the HCI product with the SolidFire integration also supports PowerShell on Mac and Linux. It would be nice if the rest of the NetApp APIs caught up with PowerShell on other operating systems besides Windows. Because we're deploying more non-Windows operating systems, it would be helpful if we would be able to use that utility."
"I would like to see more integration into the cloud, as we are pushing to do more cloud-based compute. It is just easier to get the storage and everything synced up there and move to the cloud. We want NetApp to keep down the cloud integration path. It still needs some improvement. Overall, there needs to be more cloud integration in all NetApp products."
"They could focus on making it more user-friendly. Currently, many users need a certain level of NetApp knowledge to operate it effectively, often relying on command-line interfaces that demand IT or technology skills. While there is a GUI available through Systems Manager, a lot of management still occurs at the command line, so enhancing the GUI for better usability could be a key focus area."
More NetApp ONTAP cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have licensing costs on a yearly basis. They charge per terabyte, so in terms of cost, it can be very costly. They have three different features, and you have to pay extra for those."
"The solution is cost effective."
"This solution allows the use of off-the-shelf hardware and charges by the TB of storage."
"The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."
"Make sure you are made aware of the annual subscription cost when purchasing."
"It is relatively expensive, and the additional costs for hardware and storage can make it a significant investment for customers."
"In my case, the licensing per terabytes is very high and it must be licensed for each extra functionality."
"DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is very high and should be much cheaper."
More DataCore SANsymphony pricing and cost advice
"Our pricing with discounts is reasonable, but it may vary for others."
"We have seen ROI as we can fit a lot more storage in one rack."
"It's not an all inclusive model. You have the option to purchase modules to make the entire ecosystem coherent. I would like the option to pay one price and get everything all inclusive, like OnCommand."
"ONTAP is expensive, but most storage systems are now-a-days and everything is included with the license - there are no additional fees."
"Because of its manageability, we have fewer people managing it."
"The product is a bit expensive."
"NetApp provided the features required within our cost limit."
"Because of the dedupe technologies and Data ONTAP servers, we have saved 20% on hardware. This is a lot of money for us."
More NetApp ONTAP pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Media Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?
The cost changed from a perpetual license to a subscription model, and it seems reasonable. I am technical personnel and not deeply involved in sales, but the pricing appears fine.
See all answers
What do you like most about DataCore SANsymphony?
The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are a lot of counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress).
See all answers
What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?
In my opinion, there should be improvements in how to get and filter logs. However, this is not a frequent need because they have great support that offers quick and knowledgeable assistance. Other...
See all answers
How does Azure NetApp Files compare to NetApp ONTAP?
Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft Azure file storage service built on NetApp technology. The platform combines the file capabilities of Azure and NetApp to move critical file-based applications to ...
See all answers
What do you like most about NetApp ONTAP?
We do not face any glitches or downtime.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp ONTAP?
The price could be a little bit cheaper, but you get what you pay for. I would rate it an eight out of ten for pricing because it reflects the quality of the service offered.
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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VMware vSAN vs DataCore SANsymphony
Compared 11% of the time
StarWind Virtual SAN vs DataCore SANsymphony Logo
StarWind Virtual SAN vs DataCore SANsymphony
Compared 10% of the time
HPE SimpliVity vs DataCore SANsymphony Logo
HPE SimpliVity vs DataCore SANsymphony
Compared 10% of the time
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs DataCore SANsymphony Logo
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs DataCore SANsymphony
Compared 8% of the time
More DataCore SANsymphony Competitors
Dell PowerPath vs NetApp ONTAP Logo
Dell PowerPath vs NetApp ONTAP
Compared 27% of the time
Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp ONTAP Logo
Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp ONTAP
Compared 17% of the time
Cloudian HyperStore vs NetApp ONTAP Logo
Cloudian HyperStore vs NetApp ONTAP
Compared 11% of the time
More NetApp ONTAP Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
DataCore SANsymphony
May 2025
DataCore SANsymphony reportDownload DataCore SANsymphony product report
Buyer's Guide
NetApp ONTAP
May 2025
NetApp ONTAP reportDownload NetApp ONTAP product report
 

Also Known As

DataCore Virtual SAN
No data available
 

Overview

Experience peace of mind with DataCore SANsymphony, the ultimate software-defined storage solution alleviating storage management challenges. Say goodbye to the complexities of managing different storage tiers and disruptions with SANsymphony's block-level storage virtualization technology, empowering you to automate capacity provisioning and data placement across diverse storage environments including SAN, DAS, HCI, and JBOD. Break down silos, control data placement, meet business continuity objectives, boost performance, and seamlessly expand or refresh hardware with SANsymphony. Benefit from features like asynchronous replication for disaster recovery, minimizing data loss, accelerating application responsiveness, and integrating new technology non-disruptively. Trusted by industry leaders like NASA, Thorntons, Inc., and TUI Cruises, DataCore SANsymphony guarantees unparalleled flexibility, scalability, and reliability, ensuring uninterrupted data access and application availability while reducing storage costs and inefficiencies.

DataCore

NetApp is the data authority for hybrid cloud. We provide a full range of hybrid cloud data services that simplify management of applications and data across cloud and on-premises environments to accelerate digital transformation. Together with our partners, we empower global organizations to unleash the full potential of their data to expand customer touchpoints, foster greater innovation and optimize their operations.

NetApp
 

Sample Customers

Volkswagen , Maimonides Medical Center, NASA, Thorntons, Inc., TUI, ISCO Industries, Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, United Financial Credit Union, Derby Supply Chain Solutions, Mission Community Hospital, Bellarmine College Preparatory, Colby-Sawyer College, Mount Sinai Health System, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Quorn Foods, Bitburger, University of Birmingham, Stadtverwaltung Heidelberg, NetEnt to name a few.
1&1 IONOS, Acıbadem Healthcare Group, Adder Technologies, Aero Vodochody Aerospace
Buyer's Guide
DataCore SANsymphony vs. NetApp ONTAP
April 2025
Free Report: DataCore SANsymphony vs. NetApp ONTAP
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