IBM System Storage DS5000 Series vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

IBM and NetApp are both solutions in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category. IBM is ranked #6 with an average rating of 9.0, while NetApp is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5. IBM holds a 2.4% mindshare in MS, compared to NetApp’s 13.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

IBM System Storage DS5000 S...

Read 18 IBM System Storage DS5000 Series reviews

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456 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NetApp FAS Series

Read 109 NetApp FAS Series reviews

5,914 Views
1,124 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

IBM System Storage DS5000 S...

NetApp FAS Series

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

IBM System Storage DS5000 Series and NetApp FAS Series compete in the enterprise storage market. NetApp FAS appears to have an advantage due to its richer feature set and better ROI.

Features: IBM System Storage DS5000 Series provides reliable performance, scalability, and robust data protection. It focuses on traditional storage with efficient energy use. NetApp FAS Series offers advanced data management features like comprehensive data deduplication, flash storage options, and strong performance metrics.

Room for Improvement: IBM System Storage DS5000 Series could enhance advanced feature offerings, simplify integration for newer IT environments, and improve user interface design. NetApp FAS Series may benefit from further reducing implementation complexity, optimizing resource consumption, and expanding native cloud integration capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetApp FAS Series features a more intuitive deployment process and responsive customer service, facilitating easier transitions and support. IBM System Storage DS5000 Series, while solid, may require a steeper learning curve, impacting deployment times and user experience.

Pricing and ROI: IBM System Storage DS5000 Series is attractive for its lower initial setup cost, appealing to budget-conscious buyers. NetApp FAS Series, though with higher upfront costs, offers better long-term ROI through its superior technology and operational efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM System Storage DS5000 Series vs. NetApp FAS Series Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM System Storage DS5000 Series vs. NetApp FAS Series

December 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

IBM System Storage DS5000 S...

Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

NetApp FAS Series

Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

1st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

109

Ranking in other categories

Deduplication Software (3rd), NAS (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of IBM System Storage DS5000 Series is 2.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 13.1%, down from 17.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
NetApp FAS Series	13.1%
IBM System Storage DS5000 Series	2.4%
Other	84.5%

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

Featured Reviews

Gustavo Rosello

Technological Infrastructure Manager at Mercado Argentino de Valores S.A.

Provides solid hardware and ROI to users

Companies or groups of business units are growing fast. We have perhaps between four and five more people than what it was two years ago, so the systems are increasing, and now we are working with RPA in some of our processes for automation, especially wherever it is mandatory in the financial branch, like a common investment fund and the investment in action or where there are other products. Our market is directly related to small business. We are working with companies where data translation is needed or where invoices, specifically credit invoices, the negotiation of cheques, or a doc that shows receipt of money, which you can sell at a future date. We have a sub-warehouse that has a back office in the cloud to use all operations related to creditors so that the company can increase its share in the markets. I think that we may need something on-premises in the future. The trends indicate that users are returning to on-premises systems because of the high cost of public clouds. We are looking for a better data center. In Argentina, hardware costs are high, but now, it is a great investment. We are slowly planning to expand the tool. In the USA, when it comes to object-first devices, there is a cost of 48,000 USD for 128 TB, but in Argentina, the cost is 64,000 USD for 84 TB. In Argentina, we have a lot of taxes, and the government is in the process of reducing these taxes, but now we have a situation associated with our economy. Out of 100 companies, only two are seeking employees. We are waiting for the recovery of the economy, but everything here is expensive apart from the salaries.

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Srikanth Purushothaman

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.

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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 stability is excellent."

"The solution is reliable."

"The tool is very stable...The solution's scalability is very good."

"I also like all the software features you get from the IBM System Storage DS5000 Series such as the SVC (SAN volume controller). You can put the code on the controllers, and it really gives you the advantage because you'll have HyperSwap."

"The IBM System Storage DS5000 Series can be integrated into various platforms such as IBM, Intel, Linux, and others. It provides flexibility in integration wherever storage is required."

"The most valuable aspects of the DS5000 Series are its high availability (almost six nines), stability, cost-effectiveness, and the unique IBM FlashCore modules, which other competitors lack. These FlashCore modules enable local operations on the drive itself without a performance overhead, a significant advantage."

"IBM System Storage DS5000 series enhances clients' data handling capabilities through improved security, fast systems, and added value features."

"The solution is stable. I rate its stability a nine out of ten."

More IBM System Storage DS5000 Series pros

"The most valuable feature of the NetApp FAS Series is its stability."

"It helps us meet all customer requirements. Customers have been using NetApp for many years. They are very satisfied with NetApp and continue to use NetApp and upgrade to new solutions."

"The biggest advantage that makes NetApp FAS Series better is that we can use RAID technology on the storage."

"Flexible and reliable storage solution with multiple features such as cloning, replication, and deduplication. Data migration can be done without any performance implications on the production systems."

"Ability to use mirroring and SnapVault have made backup no longer necessary."

"It's enabled us to allow admins across the IT organization to more easily manage their own subset of data within our organization."

"In NetApp FAS Series, I appreciate the visibility."

"At the moment, we use NetApp SnapMirror to replicate data to another filer at an offsite location for backup. So, I like this feature."

More NetApp FAS Series pros

Cons

"The price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"Improving software installation and licensing retrieval would make using IBM System Storage DS5000 series easier for customers."

"If you decide to expand the IBM System Storage DS5000 Series by adding an extension frame to the controller, you won't have the ability to incorporate flash storage models directly. Instead, you'll need to work with SSD which may be slightly slower."

"The solution is not flexible enough."

"The product should improve its support."

"IBM is not always as agile as other competitors when it is about cloud integration and user interfaces. They're not renewing themselves very often. They have been slow to evolve from the old GUI. The user interface should be improved, especially regarding performance analysis, which has always been a little bit weak as compared to other solutions. As a global solution, it lacks the feature for containing integration object storage. Even though they have now started to offer this feature, it is quite young and not as developed as some other vendors. There are also no mass possibilities at all. They have a lot of competition in the mid-range segment. They need to have a NAS gateway or something like that. It doesn't specifically need to be integrated into the controllers that are keys to the gateway."

"I don't like the storage now, as it is in the same data center. I want to separate the data center from the backup to another floor of the building or outside the building in a data center of another provider."

"IBM talks about integration when we talk about Safeguarded Copy. It integrates with QRadar, but it seems as though IBM still is too separate, that is, the way IBM is measured on software and hardware."

More IBM System Storage DS5000 Series cons

"Cluster mode needs to be more ubiquitous."

"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."

"The one aspect of the solution that's negative for us is also more unique to us due to the fact that we did a MetroCluster. The tiebreaker piece that does the monitoring of the two different locations, and determines if one is not talking to the network normally (or if it's truly down) is a little difficult. It feels like it was not designed from the beginning to fit well into the other pieces. It feels like it was thrown in at the last minute and it is not smooth."

"It's hard to find in-person training that fits our schedule in our area. They offer a lot of online training, but we need somewhere to go because we can't really get away from the office."

"They should add new features to the product."

"As I see it, there could be more interfaces, more cache, etc."

"Installation of the additional switches and ETP could be improved."

"The NetApp FAS Series is not as high-performing and is not as fast. Its speed needs improvement, but this could only be done if it's an all-flash solution."

More NetApp FAS Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is fair. IBM is quite fair in price when you compare it with others. We also use Hitachi internally, and Hitachi is always a little bit more expensive. NetApp is also a bit more expensive. So, IBM has good positioning in terms of price."

"Compared to other vendors, I think it's expensive."

"The basic functionalities of the product are provided within the normal license, but users can opt for some optional features from IBM's licensing model."

"It's an expensive solution."

"We mounted all the virtualization with less than 1,50,000 USD. We are negotiating to get the tool for 800,000,000 Argentine Pesos. The tool is expensive, but it is worth the money."

"It is a competitively priced solution. The cost can vary depending on whether it is purchased from the hardware or the software departments."

"This product is priced well. The ratio between cost and productivity is very high and we're happy with it."

"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 purchased it for four years, and it wasn't expensive. It was reasonable. Every company has a different agreement with NetApp. We got everything we wanted with all the bells and whistles and all the features and functionalities."

"If we want a ransomware solution with the product or other extended features, we need to pay an extra cost."

"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being expensive. We pay a one-time purchase price."

"I don't recall the price, but in general, pricing can always be better."

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

"It’s difficult for us to get money, so make sure you get everything in order, because there’s no going back and saying “oh, I missed this or that”, so make sure you plan well and well in advance."

More NetApp FAS Series pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Manufacturing Company

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	31
Midsize Enterprise	38
Large Enterprise	57

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM System Storage DS5000 Series?

The solution is reliable.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM System Storage DS5000 Series?

The price fits well with the proposal of this equipment. Although IBM is not cheap, the cost fits well with the propose.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM System Storage DS5000 Series?

There are some functions that can only be used in prompt mode. If these functions could be shown in the graphical interface, it could be better.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp FAS Series?

Flexibility in data replication.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance vs IBM System Storage DS5000 Series

Compared 52% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs IBM System Storage DS5000 Series

Compared 48% of the time

More IBM System Storage DS5000 Series Competitors

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs NetApp FAS Series

Compared 26% of the time

HPE MSA vs NetApp FAS Series

Compared 7% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs NetApp FAS Series

Compared 5% of the time

Qumulo vs NetApp FAS Series

Compared 4% of the time

HPE StoreOnce vs NetApp FAS Series

Compared 4% of the time

More NetApp FAS Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM System Storage DS5000 Series

January 2026

Download IBM System Storage DS5000 Series product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp FAS Series

January 2026

Download NetApp FAS Series product report

Also Known As

System Storage DS5000 series

No data available

Overview

DS5000 storage systems are equally adept at supporting transactional applications such as databases and online transaction processing (OLTP), throughput-intensive applications such as high-performance computing (HPC) and rich media, and concurrent workloads for consolidation and virtualization. DS5000 series storage systems can support service level agreements (SLAs) for the most common operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, UNIX, Linux and Apple Macintosh.
With drive-level encryption, DS5000 series storage systems support affordable data security with no performance penalty. The DS5000 storage system’s multiple replication options, drive-level encryption, and persistent cache backup can help ensure that any data in cache is captured and safe in the event of a power outage.

IBM

NetApp FAS series is an enterprise-level storage system that provides a wide variety of data management services, including data protection, block and file storage, and data management.

NetApp FAS is designed to be highly scalable, allowing your organization to grow storage capacity on demand. NetApp FAS also supports multiple protocols, including NFS, SMB, iSCSI, and Fibre Channel, as well as various storage architectures, including SAN (Storage Area Network) and NAS (Network-Attached Storage).

The FAS series has multiple data protection and data management features, including snapshots, cloning, replication, and deduplication, to help secure your data and manage it more efficiently. The system integrates with other NetApp products and solutions, to create a unified data management platform. The system can be deployed on-premise, on multi-cloud environments, or hybrid.

NetApp FAS Series Benefits and Features

NetApp FAS series provides its users with several key benefits and features, including:

Scalability: NetApp FAS series is easy to scale, allowing organizations to rapidly grow their storage capacity according to demand.

Security: Protect and manage your data with various data protection and data management tools, including snapshots, cloning, replication, and deduplication.

Seamless integration: Integrate with other NetApp products and solutions to ensure a unified data management platform across on-premise, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments.

Reduced costs: Consolidation of multiple storage boxes greatly reduces the data center footprint. From a management point of view, with NetApp FAS you manage a single storage box instead of multiple storage boxes.
Compatibility: Forward and backward compatibility ensures that you don’t have to trade in existing controllers. New controllers can always integrate with previously released controllers.

Multi-protocol support: Support for multiple protocols, including NFS, SMB, iSCSI, and Fibre Channel.

High performance and availability: The solution has high input and output per second performance and ensures that critical data remains accessible in the event of a hardware failure.
Intuitive interface: The FAS series has a user-friendly interface and management dashboard, making it easy to manage your storage systems. With unified management, you can quickly run a single protocol on your entire system
Data cloning and replication: Easily clone databases of any size. Clones occupy a very, very small footprint on the storage until they are severed from the main database. Replications carried out by the system are fast and require very little bandwidth.

Reviews from Real Users

NetApp FAS Series stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its speed, reliability, and a wide variety of features.

Adriano S., IT project and infrastructure service manager, writes, “The replication feature is noteworthy because it's faster than most and it uses little bandwidth. Then there's the friendly interface that the equipment offers. With this interface, it is very easy to manage.”

Temitope O., a NetApp product manager at Hiperdist Ltd, says, “I like the unified management feature because sometimes you end up running a single protocol on the entire system. You rather have a system for a particular protocol and another system for other protocols, especially in a big environment like mine.”

NetApp

Sample Customers

Engine Informštica

Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College

Buyer's Guide

IBM System Storage DS5000 Series vs. NetApp FAS Series

December 2025

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