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IBM System Storage DS5000 Series vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

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
18
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
108
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd), NAS (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of IBM System Storage DS5000 Series is 1.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 15.6%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NetApp FAS Series15.6%
IBM System Storage DS5000 Series1.9%
Other82.5%
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

Gustavo Rosello - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Arnaud Salmon - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good performance and
Once, I've been in a program, but they stopped supporting protocols like HTTP, STP, and that kind of stuff. All of the DIP supports at the beginning were kind of support when it was just Python and just five storage. And it happened a few times that the customer required the STP and HTTP protocol for storage. And I was surprised I couldn't do it anymore with NetApp. So, it would be beneficial for them to support both kinds of protocols. The only little black points that I would put on top of NetApp FAS Series. There is room for improvement in deployment and configuration processes. The thing with ONTAP is that we have a lot of layers, from the raw disks to the volumes we present to servers and configure. There are quite a lot of things to configure. Probably NetApp should ease the way to install that. In NetApp products, such as ONTAP and FAS, a solid understanding of storage is still necessary to handle configurations in larger systems. It's not the same with Pure Storage or Huawei. Even someone less familiar with storage could manage it, making it more accessible.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The stability and performance of the drive are the most valuable."
"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 security and velocity for fetching data are valuable."
"I like that it's stable, and I am satisfied with it. We have had some issues, but that is normal in IT. IBM System Storage DS5000 works fine most of the time."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"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."
"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 solution is reliable."
"NetApp FAS Series is simple to set up."
"The product is flexible."
"Adaptive balancing is a valuable feature."
"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."
"Snapshot, deduplication, and compression features are valuable."
"The most valuable feature for us is the combining of HA and SnapMirror."
"The new FAS series is a good fit for some customers. We have good performance and capacity, even though it is full flash."
"Other products lose performance over time, but NetApp OS is speed-optimized."
 

Cons

"The price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"It would be nice if duplication was possible at the hardware level. As it is now, duplication is a software feature, whereas compression is a hardware feature."
"The amount of storage could be increased."
"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."
"Regarding improvements, there's a common perception, primarily during pre-sales, that IBM storage solutions are expensive, though studies often prove otherwise. As for additional functionality, supporting two to three sites for applications might be a potential enhancement."
"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."
"I find the solution isn't so easy to understand. A user must be quite knowledgeable in the product. It isn't like HPE 3PAR, which you can use quite easily without too much storage experience."
"When we were going through all the MFA hardening and the anti-ransomware setup, I gave some feedback to our executive. The MFA process for getting that set up on the AFF systems was cumbersome compared to some of our other systems."
"I would like to see less latency and higher IOPS."
"It's not a cheap system. It is very expensive. The pricing has been ridiculous every time that we had to renew the support."
"A big problem with physical appliances is that updating them can be a bit burdensome."
"If our customer needs a high-performance storage solution then we don't recommend this product."
"It may need more flexibility to fight with other competing arrays."
"There was a bug when creating new custom roles that automatically gave volume deletion permission, which was a problem, but they finally fixed it."
"We're supposed to have used NetApp FAS Series for replication, but then one of the nodes failed, and then it's taken us some time to bring it up."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This product is priced well. The ratio between cost and productivity is very high and we're happy with it."
"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's an expensive solution."
"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 is a competitively priced solution. The cost can vary depending on whether it is purchased from the hardware or the software departments."
"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."
"The price it not low, but comparing features to other vendors, the price can be balanced."
"It is expensive."
"The scalability is pretty good, but it's too expensive."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being expensive. We pay a one-time purchase price."
"I've sold arrays for as little $20,000 USD and as high as $300,000 USD."
"The price, compared to competitors, is quite high."
"It is a one-time license charge for NetApp FAS Series to run and we pay annually for upgrades and support."
"The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is reasonable for its performance."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise37
Large Enterprise57
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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.
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...
 

Also Known As

System Storage DS5000 series
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM System Storage DS5000 Series vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.