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IBM SAN24B-4 Express vs NetApp AFF comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 SAN24B-4 Express
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise SAN (9th)
NetApp AFF
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
315
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM SAN24B-4 Express is designed for Enterprise SAN and holds a mindshare of 5.5%, up 2.0% compared to last year.
NetApp AFF, on the other hand, focuses on All-Flash Storage, holds 6.8% mindshare, down 9.4% since last year.
Enterprise SAN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM SAN24B-4 Express5.5%
Dell PowerStore12.4%
Dell PowerVault11.6%
Other70.5%
Enterprise SAN
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetApp AFF6.8%
Dell PowerStore7.7%
Everpure FlashArray6.4%
Other79.1%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Alejandro Rivas Detomasi - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager | Service Delivery Coordinator at kyndryl
It has short-wave and long-wave capabilities.
In my experience, it is one of the most reliable options in SAN switches. Let´s say that the SAN24 is the perfect combination between two great brands (IBM hardware and Brocade´s software). In my experience, Brocade´s software is the best for SAN implementation; easy to use and intuitive in every aspect. Brocade is always updating its IOS (operating system), adding new functionalities to its switches and correcting minor errors. If you add all these things to IBM hardware and support, you can trust that your SAN is going to have near-zero downtime.
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Synergy Computers
Unified storage has delivered efficient AI analytics and low latency for critical workloads
There might be some lag or response time with respect to support cases, but even then I will rate it 8.5 out of 10. All of this is the same for all product ranges, whether E-series, NetApp AFF, or FAS series, because they are very efficient to respond. The only reason I rated it 8.5 is because the warehouse for spare parts, when a problem comes, a spare is needed to replace it, for example, a disk. In Pakistan, they have only one warehouse in Karachi. This warehouse manages all the problems when a problem comes. They ship the part based on the customer use case and customer service request. That is the only reason I rate it 8.5 because they have only one warehouse in Pakistan, which is in Karachi. For example, if a problem comes in Islamabad, it will take time to deliver the spare because the part will be shipped from Karachi to Islamabad, which will take around maybe a day. Other OEMs have their warehouses in Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi also. In terms of part replacement requirements, they are very efficient in that area because they have warehouses in multiple cities of Pakistan.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In my experience, it is one of the most reliable options in SAN switches."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"It is stable. In my three years working with the storage, I haven't seen any issues with our NetApp product."
"I would say the consistency with the ONTAP versions and the speed and performance from the flash."
"We recently started using the volume encryption feature, which is helpful because there are some federal projects that require data at rest to be encrypted."
"It provides greater stability for our corporate database, which we host on the FAS, and we have a much greater sense of confidence and reliability in our data solutions."
"The speed is great. That's probably number one in terms of features we appreciate."
"The ease of use for setting up our basic shares such as NFS and CIFS is valuable. It takes a couple of clicks to set up things like object shares."
"Technical support is excellent; we have an excellent team with NetApp, they help us and they are available anytime that we need them."
 

Cons

"This product can improve in the out-of-the-box features; for example, licensing 16 ports instead of 8."
"The procurement process could be improved. It takes a long time for us to receive stuff. The product is good. It's not the product, it's just that it takes forever to get it. It's not our reseller's problem; it's usually held up at NetApp."
"We'd like to see improvement in the time to retrieve from the Cloud, whether it's on-prem to cloud and whether it's public or private cloud."
"I would like for them to develop the ability to detach the fabric pool. Once you've added it to an aggregate it's there for life and it would be nice to disconnect it if we ever had to."
"The graceful shut down feature is no longer there, in the version that I have."
"When it comes to the connectivity on the back end, where the hardware is concerned—the cabling and the like—it could also be simplified to ease the communication between the nodes and between the other components of the infrastructure. I still find that a little bit complicated."
"Our initial setup involved a lot of development."
"The process for initial setup could be streamlined."
"It's expensive. It's in the hundreds of thousands. It's beneficial, but at times, I feel compared to other vendors, we are paying a premium for the licensing that other vendors include."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I am comfortable with the pricing, which is fair compared to others."
"NetApp AFF is an expensive product, although not compared to other vendors."
"The only area where the product has room for improvement is the cost."
"It's expensive but we think over time all the prices are going to go down."
"NetApps offers a lot of different options. Just take your time and work with the consulting teams. Lay out what your needs are to ensure you are purchasing what will help you be successful."
"I would like the pricing to be cheaper."
"NetApp is getting too expensive."
"In addition to simplifying the management across a mix of solutions, AFF simplifies the cost. That was one of the main reasons we purchased AFF."
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Comparison Review

it_user186357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect with 51-200 employees
Jan 28, 2015
NetApp vs. XtremIO
Is there another storage platform as feature rich as NetApp FAS? I think it is fair to say that NetApp FAS running Clustered Data ONTAP is a very feature rich platform – the move to the clustered version of ONTAP has brought many next-generation features including Scale-out and Non-disruptive…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise242
 

Questions from the Community

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What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
Well, Is one thing NetApp Storage has vs other brand is the mix of protocol CIFS with NFS booth working together in the same volume that features is difficult to find in other Storage but the flexi...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended cost is decisively based on the Gartner magic quadrant storage 2020 Net app compa...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matters more than IOPS for your needs, Netapp AFF is the right choice. You can appro...
 

Also Known As

SAN24B-4 Express
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ADP, McKesson Technology Solutions, Migros Zurich, Mars Incorporated, Grupo Hefame, Williams-Sonoma
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco and others in Enterprise SAN. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.