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IBM ProtectTIER vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

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

IBM ProtectTIER
Ranking in Deduplication Software
13th
Average Rating
7.2
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (75th)
NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in Deduplication Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
NAS (3rd), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Deduplication Software category, the mindshare of IBM ProtectTIER is 1.7%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 4.0%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Deduplication Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NetApp FAS Series4.0%
IBM ProtectTIER1.7%
Other94.3%
Deduplication Software
 

Featured Reviews

AG
Technical Lead at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Provides a short-term backup, archive, and cataloging for 20,000 people in our organization
The backup for a large amount of data is slow. When there's a large amount of data, sometimes the backup isn't completed in time. I have a 24 hour cycle, so it doesn't get completed in 24 hours with the large amount of data. With Veritas NetBackup, I can take 20 terabytes of backup in a day.
Srikanth Purushothaman - PeerSpot reviewer
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
Has supported long-term data protection and backup while requiring better part availability and pricing options
For monitoring purposes, we normally use flash access storage exclusively. We utilize a hybrid system because we need performance, combining NL-SAS for the volume and SAS flash to use as a fast cache system that provides more IOPS. We normally implement RAID 10, which we prefer over RAID 6's n plus 2 combinations. We utilize it for data redundancy, even with write intensity on. Regarding the unified storage architecture for NetApp FAS Series, we normally opt for exclusivity unless budget constraints exist. Our IOPS are very high, reaching somewhere about 50k to 150k or 1.150k. The high performance ensures minimal latency. An advantage we've seen with NetApp FAS Series is that snapshots provide very rapid backup and fast recovery. We basically use snapshots for data protection as first-level protection, with deduplication between the two storages serving as second-level protection.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Overall IBM ProtectTIER is a great solution. It is easy to use."
"The cataloging is the best feature. It takes millions of frames for the backup. It's incremental, so it takes less time to complete."
"In terms of stability, I've found it to be very stable. I've walked into the server room when it was at 60 degrees Celcius, and it was still running fine."
"The command-line interface is good."
"The most valuable features are the Self-Service, and the ability to search the data."
"The solution is highly stable."
"The storage efficiency provided a maximum savings in our storage utilization."
"The most valuable features are compression and dedupe."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its absolute reliability."
"One of the most valuable features offered is double-parity RAID, which guarantees that your data will stay intact. We're also able to provision storage and monitor which ones are really consuming storage."
"It gives us the performance we need and the reliability we need to make sure that our systems have the uptime that our internal customers demand."
"The SnapMirror is a good tool because, as long as you're going NetApp to NetApp, it's ultimately the fastest way to move data. We replicate everything to another site for disaster recovery."
"The most valuable feature for us is the combining of HA and SnapMirror."
"​NAS stability"
 

Cons

"The configuration wizards are still complex and hard to navigate. These should be easier to manage."
"IBM ProtectTIER could improve by being more user-friendly."
"Setting up the system to work with legacy equipment is a bit complex at times."
"The backup for a large amount of data is slow."
"I would like the possibility to back up the infrastructure and then replicate it upon on restart, without having to orchestrate the starting of the VM."
"The plan is to go with all SSDs and use MDM, rather than sticking with traditional disk drives. The goal is to have all SSDs for better maintenance speed, which is essential for applications that need to work."
"I think this kind of infrastructure is mostly obsolete. To keep up with developments in this space, you need to move all these features to an All-Flash solution."
"NetApp systems are somewhat more complex, though not excessively so. If you're transitioning from a Windows server environment to NetApp, get training or education; otherwise, you might struggle with this solution."
"The solution's configuration is not flexible."
"The high cost of the product is an area of concern, so from an improvement perspective, the tool needs to be made cheaper."
"The product should include an audit log feature."
"Cost is always a factor. Some people choose EMC or Dell because they perceive NetApp as being more expensive."
"The adoption of flash by NetApp has also been lagging behind the trendsetters, like TMS, Nimble, and others."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM ProtectTIER is an expensive solution."
"The customer can decide how they want to purchase a license. However, the price of the solution is expensive."
"This solution is very expensive."
"We have a capacity-based license, which is managed centrally for all the sites of my company."
"In general, I find NetApp to be very expensive. That's the main issue I have with them. So it's a drawback in terms of pricing."
"I've sold arrays for as little $20,000 USD and as high as $300,000 USD."
"NetApp FAS Series' pricing is competitive."
"When we need to implement a less expensive solution we use Huawei. NetApp FAS Series is a little bit expensive compared to the average of the market."
"The price it not low, but comparing features to other vendors, the price can be balanced."
"The product's pricing is reasonable."
"The price of the NetApp FAS Series is reasonable and it provides value for the money with the feature sets. NetApp FAS Series are competing with Huawei storage which has an office and does aggressive marketing with a discount. However, we found that if our customers do a technology refresh they are happy with the performance of the NetApp FAS Series."
"We are on a perpetual license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise57
 

Questions from the Community

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Which SAN product would you choose: IBM FlashSystem (FS9500) vs PureFlash Array/X NVMe vs PureFlash Array/XL NVMe?
Have you considered a NetApp FAS Storage for your NAS needs? I am sure it fits very well.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp FAS Series?
The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is not cheap, but in comparison to other vendors, NetApp FAS Series is affordable because they also have deduplication, compression, and inline compression. They fo...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Durham Police Department, Re-Store LLC, CenterGrid, pixx.io GmbH, Australian Government Department of Defence, QD, Refresco Gerber
Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM ProtectTIER vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.